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BOTH SIDES OF THE 


VEIL 


& pergonal experience 


BY 


ANNE MANNING ROBBINS 


US 


W%4 


BOSTON 


SHERMAN, FRENCH &f COMPANY 


I909 



Copyright, 1909 
Sherman, French &> Company 






Printed in U. S. A. 



TO 

AUGUSTUS PEARL MARTIN 
whose life on earth exemplified to the 
author, during an association of eight 
short years, many noble and beautiful 
qualities of soul, and whose seeming 
continued existence on the other slde 
of the Veil has inspired new faith 
in the reality of that Other Life, 
this book is reverently 
dedicated 



The following letter from Professor William 
James was addressed to the publishers: 

The manuscript which this accompanies, and 
which I recommend hereby to your attention, is 
from a companion of mine in psychical research, 
who, from a state of doubt, has won through to 
a faith in human survival in a spiritual order 
which continues the visible order. It is a gen- 
uine record of moral and religious experience, 
profoundly earnest, and calculated, I should 
think, to interest and impress readers who desire 
to know adequately what deeper significances our 
life may hold in store. 

Truly yours, 

William James 



All names and initials used in this 
book are genuine. In every instance 
deemed advisable the necessary permis- 
sion has been obtained. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction vii 

PART I 
Personal Experience and Growth of Faith 

I. Preliminary 15 

II. Mount Holyoke and Loss of a 

Creed 17 

III. Means of Livelihood 25 

IV. Early Acquaintance with Mrs. 

Piper 31 

V. Richard Hodgson and Psychical Re- 
search 38 

VI. Association with A. P. Martin . . 48 

VII. Apparent Failure of Prediction . 56 

VIII. Fulfilment 67 

IX. Faith 80 

PART II 

Communications from the Other Side of the 
Veil through Mrs. Piper 

X. Prefatory Explanations . . . .91 
XI. Extracts from Reports of Sittings . 100 



CONTENTS 

PART III 

Suggestive Thoughts on the Attainment of 
Spirituality 

PAGE 

Self-Discipline 217 

Happiness 229 

Various Intimations 239 

Love 255 



INTRODUCTION 

F. W. H. Myers says : " We receive life 
and knowledge, which it is our business to 
develop into Love and Wisdom and Joy." x 

William James says: " The whole subject 
of immortal life has its prime roots in personal 
feeling. . . . There are individuals with 
a real passion for the matter, men and women 
for whom a life hereafter is a pungent craving, 
and the thought of it an obsession; and in 
whom keenness of interest has bred an insight 
into the relations of the subject that no one 
less penetrated with the mystery of it can at- 
tain. Some of these people are known to me. 
They are not official personages; they do not 
speak as the scribes, but as having direct 
authority. And surely, if anywhere a prophet 
clad in goatskins, and not a uniformed official, 
should be called to give inspiration, assurance, 
and instruction, it would seem to be here, on 
such a theme." 2 

The business of life as concisely stated by 
Myers I have been and still am endeavoring to 
carry on, and I find it a business which I shall 
wish to pursue to the day of my death, and 
quite possibly thereafter. I offer both quota- 

1 Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death. 
Vol. II, p. 310. 

2 Human Immortality, pp. 3, 4. 



viii BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

tions as justification, if justification be needed, 
for the publication of the present volume. 
My real authority, however, must be, not what 
others have thought and said, with all due re- 
spect for the writers quoted, and with grati- 
tude for the expression of the ages inextricably 
woven into the literature of our own genera- 
tion; but the authority of deep conviction, of 
actual experience, of ever-widening vision, of 
increasing happiness, of growing power, and 
the belief that these things are for all who will 
seek. 

There is nothing more patent to the observer 
and the thinker than the differences in capacity 
with which men are born. Let that fact be ex- 
plained as it may, or not explained at all, it 
has always seemed to me unreasonable to com- 
plain of the condition in which one finds one's 
self when awakening to consciousness in early 
life; for whoever will make use of his God- 
given faculties, whether he be a savage of the 
lowest type or an Eastern sage, whether he 
occupy a plane but little removed from the 
animal or have back of him ages of inherited 
thought, may make that degree of progress in 
his life between birth and the grave which 
shall be to him a satisfaction, which shall 
bring to him the good which he craves. To 
this end it is not necessary to understand the 
whole scheme of creation, or to be able to say 
positively that such and such things are so, 



INTRODUCTION ix 

but what seems to be true to a person who 
clarifies his brain and purifies his heart, and 
then looks and listens, is generally a safe 
guide for that person. In fact, it is often 
the person who appears to the casual 
observer to have no religion at all, because it 
cannot be expressed by or comprised in any 
creed or dogma, who is most likely to have a 
religion of his own, sincere, deep, vital and 
soul-saving. By many a system of philosophy 
and through many a religious creed the human 
soul has continued its search after self-knowl- 
edge and God knowledge, yet each one in his 
own generation must begin as a little child to 
find out for himself the relation between him- 
self and his Maker, must make the knowledge 
his individual possession, as if no one had ever 
lived and talked before. 

It does not appear that one is pushed on to 
acquire knowledge, pushed on to master the 
lessons of life, pushed on to reap the profit of 
his experience, against his will, but from the 
moment that the desire makes itself felt in the 
soul, from that moment opportunities come. 
It is quite plain that opportunities come to him 
who deserves them, to him who is ready for 
them, to him who is able to seize them. And 
what is opportunity, and what do we mean by 
the word? Analyzed, it means the appearance 
before our eyes of an opening in the black wall 
of fate about us, through which we may ex- 



x BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

press ourselves, our talents, our souls in some 
larger way than we have hitherto done. But, 
the soul is its own teacher. It is not necessary 
for it to be here or there in order that it may 
learn. It may acquire knowledge wherever 
it chances to be, by revolving in the mind what- 
ever is suggested by its particular environ- 
ment, or whatever wells up from within. 

Unforeseen events seem to determine for us 
a course in life which proves in the end far 
better than anything we could possibly have 
planned, had the choice been absolutely in our 
own hands. While we are free to do as we 
wish within certain limits, there are boundaries 
beyond which we cannot go. This shaping of 
events points to Eternal Law, to Divine Guid- 
ance, to an Over-ruling Providence, which while 
great enough to control the stars in their 
orbits also enters each individual life. 

I disclaim the slightest pretence to science, 
yet I understand that any one who observes 
facts carefully and records them truthfully, 
whether those facts be in the physical, mental 
or spiritual realm of being, is adding his mite 
to the accumulations of science. 

I have no scheme of philosophy to offer, but 
only such bits of philosophic thought as have 
filtered through my own brain and shown 
themselves effective for good in my own life. 

I wish to record here only the thoughts 
and experiences which are and have become my 



INTRODUCTION xi 

own. Whatever the origin of the thoughts, 
whether forced out of me by the intensity of 
misery, or dropped into my heart by an angel, 
they now belong to me. It is as if I had 
found myself drowning; as if absolutely noth- 
ing which I could grasp were within sight or 
within reach; as if, realizing my danger, I had, 
as the only means of saving myself, suddenly 
disappeared from the material and become 
pure ether; thus finding myself able through 
the inherent power of my own nature to rise 
out of the blackness of the engulfing waves, to 
float above all danger, or to land, as I choose, 
on solid ground. 

The serious author must deliberate most 
carefully before committing to the cold type 
that which cannot be unsaid or taken back. I 
can only offer the present volume in the spirit 
of the greatest humility, yet there is something 
within me which is insistent upon expression. 
This something within me has been leading me 
through varied phases of life, through doubt 
and mental darkness, through disappointment 
of hopes, through loss of beloved friends, and 
lo ! life's pathway has suddenly opened upon a 
bright and luminous field. At a little distance 
ahead of me in this same bright field there ap- 
pears a veil. Written across this veil is the 
word " Death," and while the path which I 
descry in advance grows more beautiful as it 
approaches that veil, beyond it the brightness 



xii BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

is yet more dazzling, so that with the light on 
this side and the still greater light on that, the 
veil itself is almost transparent. 

From childhood in a country town where 
the orthodox church gathered within its fold 
all young eager spirits like my own, engrafting 
upon them its creed and dedicating them to its 
service, to a present freedom of soul which for 
itself fits all things into the scheme of the ever- 
lasting goodness of God, which looks with 
admiration, wonder and reverence, but no fear, 
upon the mysteries of the Universe, which 
realizes the presence, the sympathy and the 
helpfulness of friends called dead, which re- 
sponds to the invisible life palpitating all about 
and receives energy therefrom, of this pathway 
and this transition I would speak. 

It may be said that this is the philosophy of 
self-development merely, and that all such 
philosophy is as old as the hills. So be it. I 
will utter my little word too. If to the 
psychologist my logic seem crude, and to the 
litterateur my language inadequate, my ut- 
terance will not have been in vain if haply its 
message meet the need of some human heart. 



PART I 



PERSONAL EXPERIENCE AND 
GROWTH OF FAITH 



PRELIMINARY 

Since the early spring of 1 88 1 to the time of 
publication I have resided in the city of Bos- 
ton. My interest in Spiritism and what is 
known as " Psychical Research " dates from 
about that time. My opportunities have been 
unusual and my experience unique in some re- 
spects, and for that reason I feel that I ought 
not to withhold the experience from those who 
are seekers in the same field with myself, or 
from others in whom it may awaken an inter- 
est. I heartily wish that I might give my 
message dissociated from myself. Consider- 
ing, however, the peculiar nature of my sub- 
ject, I find that my personality must be wholly 
sacrificed to the object for which I write. My 
search after spiritual truth and the material 
circumstances of my life have been so closely 
interwoven that I cannot speak of the former 
without touching upon the latter. In fact, it 
is the close association and interdependence of 
the material and the spiritual which I wish to 
make prominent in this brief narrative, and 
were it not for that relation I should not as- 
sume that the outward affairs of an ordinary 
routine life could have the slightest interest for 
any one. 

15 



1 6 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

In order to make clear the different phases in 
the development of my faith I shall be obliged 
to go back a few years previous to 1881 and 
speak briefly of my early religious experience. 



II 

MOUNT HOLYOKE AND LOSS OF A 
CREED 

When I was sixteen years old I left home 
for the first time, and entered Mount Holyoke 
Seminary, now Mount Holyoke College. 
Homesick girls of sixteen, surrounded by 
strangers and awed by superiors, are doubtless 
extremely impressionable. Some aged divine 
from Boston was holding religious meetings at 
the seminary. It was impressed upon me 
very strongly that I ought to " be converted," 
but how to become converted puzzled my 
brain and my heart. I knew that is was neces- 
sary to feel a conviction of sin and contrition 
therefor, but try as best I might I was not 
able to realize the enormity of sin that I was 
supposed to have committed during the short 
sixteen-years of my childhood. However, one 
evening I was wrought up to the point of ven- 
turing upon a personal encounter with this min- 
isterial personage, in a private room which 
seems to have, been used as a sort of confes- 
sional. It had the desired effect and I " be- 
came converted." 

This man told me that God had been giving 
me good things all my life, and he asked me 
what I had done for God, implying that I 
17 



1 8 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

had done absolutely nothing and that at best I 
was a most ungrateful creature. This argu- 
ment appealed to my sense of justice, for upon 
reflection I could not pick out any special thing 
that I had done for God, and of course justice 
required that I should do something in return 
for all that He had done for me. It gave me 
a working basis, and I resolved that from that 
moment I would " do something " for God, 
though just what assistance the Mighty Creator 
wanted of such a babe was not quite clear in 
my mind. However, I was swept along on a 
wave of enthusiasm and found myself very 
happy. I was happy in praying for my be- 
nighted relatives who had not been through a 
similar experience, and I went to my bed at 
night with songs of joy on my lips and in my 
heart. My youth, my love of study and my 
opportunities may have had something to do 
with this happiness and possibly would have 
been sufficient to account for it even though the 
word " religion " had not been pronounced in 
my hearing. I believe there was, however, a 
new sense of being on the right track, of con- 
scientiously endeavoring to do right, of being 
in harmonious relation with the Power that I 
conceived as God. The great life-and-death 
struggle of maturer years, the desperate effort 
of the floundering soul to save itself, was yet 
to come. This period at the age of sixteen I 
count as one of the happiest in my life. But 



THE LOSS OF A CREED 19; 

the religion which I then professed did not 
make me over. It did not remove the timidity 
from my nature or blot out of existence certain 
other temperamental and possibly inherited 
traits which were then beginning to torment 
me. This required analytical thought and 
brave effort. Nor on the other hand did it 
quench a certain fearlessness of spirit which 
seems to have been born in me side by side with 
the timidity, and for which saving grace in my 
make-up I have always been profoundly grate- 
ful. 

During my senior year at this school Bible 
study was an important part of the curriculum 
and it required considerable time each week to 
master the lessons which were recited on Sun- 
days. One Sunday the presiding teacher asked 
for the meaning of the words " being covered 
with the righteousness of Christ." No one in 
the large class offered an answer until I at- 
tempted one by expressing the idea that because 
we have no righteousness of our own we must 
be covered, hidden as it were, by that of 
Christ, in order to be saved. If I had said 
that we must attempt to make for ourselves a 
garment pure and righteous like that of Christ, 
I never should have regretted my words, but 
what I did say I have regretted many times 
and wished that I might have an opportunity 
to unsay. For the idea then in my mind was 
that of Christ standing garbed in ample white 



20 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

robe, so full that it could spread out like 
wings, completely hiding from the view of a 
wrathful God poor creatures like ourselves, 
garmentless or clothed in rags. My reply ap- 
peared to give satisfaction. To-day I see not 
only ignorance but cowardice in my words. 
To-day I believe not only that we may have 
righteousness of our own, but that not until we 
do have such righteousness can we or shall we 
be saved. Being righteous is salvation. As 
Christ set us the example, so must we follow, 
and as He was righteous, so must we be accord- 
ing to our light and our power. 

At Mount Holyoke the discipline of the 
routine which demands of every one her best is 
an invaluable factor in the development of 
character. I shall never forget the impres- 
sion made upon me by the teachers of my day 
through their spirit of consecration and lofty 
devotion to their chosen work. And I believe 
the same powerful influence is exerted there to- 
day. They grow accustomed to their work, 
they forget themselves, and they little realize 
the effect which the developed beauty of their 
lives makes upon the sensitive girl from the 
country away from home for the first time in 
her life, for the first time brought into contact 
with her peers and superiors. 

The religious teaching of those years, — 
why speak of it? Let them praise it or criti- 
cise it who will. The true inwardness of it 



THE LOSS OF A CREED 21 

made it worthy, left its impress upon the pupil 
and gradually cast into the shadow of incon- 
sequcntiality all outward observance. To the 
freed mind the extreme exactions of conscien- 
tious, orthodox Christianity, fearful lest it 
shall not do right, seem puerile. Yet through 
all these different forms of religion one sees the 
self-same effort of the soul, the effort to com- 
prehend its true place in the Cosmos and to 
find its true relation to God. 

It does not seem to me necessary for a per- 
son to be told in the freshness of his youth, 
when he knows almost nothing about sin from 
any experience of his own, that a gulf lies be- 
tween himself and God, that God has cast him 
out from His presence, that only in meek de- 
pendence upon the saving grace of another's 
virtue and the sacrifice of another's life may he 
be reinstated in the Divine favor. Is it not 
better to present to the young mind the beauty 
of goodness, the delight of conforming to right- 
eous laws as the natural way of living? If a 
Christ had within him a saving grace and a 
righteous power, it is enough to hold up His 
life as an ideal, and better for the youth to fol- 
low that ideal of his own accord because it is 
shown to him to be altogether lovely, and not 
because he must fear dire punishment if he does 
not. Yet the thinker — and everyone may 
think — is bound to come out at last into 
spiritual freedom through any and every path. 



22 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

The instructors in this particular college 
who were there in my day will always be re- 
membered by me as among the loveliest, lofti- 
est, noblest characters it has ever been my good 
fortune to know. They set before their pupils 
the saving truth by its daily exemplification. 
Though there may have been grades among 
them, I make no exception, for at the institu- 
tion founded by Mary Lyon no one is ever 
called to the sacred work of teaching who has 
not already shown herself to be a consecrated 
soul. 

Yet when I returned to my home I saw that 
my father, who was a close student of nature 
but passed for a skeptic in matters of religion, 
however much I might pray for him could no 
more change his nature than the leopard could 
change his skin. I felt there must be some- 
thing wrong with my belief. I was asking 
God for that which was contrary to laws of 
His own making. My reason showed me that 
facts are unalterable, that the unalterableness 
of things is what makes them facts. My be- 
lief was a changeable thing; my belief must ac- 
commodate itself to facts, for facts would 
never adjust themselves to it. 

And my oldest sister was a lovely person. 
She was lovely to look at, kind and gentle 
in her actions ; her sweet voice and her musical 
talent made beautiful music in the home; she 
was a second mother to us all. Why, then, 



THE LOSS OF A CREED 23 

should I wish to change her nature ? Her na- 
ture was in my opinion quite adorable. Yet 
she somehow seemed to lack a religious creed 
of which I could approve. She believed if we 
do well here we shall do well hereafter, but 
she had no elaborate scheme of salvation 
such as had been drilled into me; an angry 
God, an incarnation, a sacrifice, an atonement, 
and the hiding behind His garments. Again 
my philosophy must somehow be changed so 
as to include this motherly girl, for I could not 
possibly believe that a good God would con- 
demn her. This beloved sister passed out of 
the body in 1881. 

My mother always has been and is to-day 
in her extreme old age devoted to her church 
and her creed, yet her charity has been of the 
broadest kind and she was never coercive in 
matters of religion. Blessed be mothers like 
mine. 

In a very short time after leaving college I 
felt my religious creed slipping from me. I 
could not hold it. It did not satisfy my re- 
quirements. As is usual, I believe, with 
devotees who cut loose from the bonds of their 
early faith, I swung to the other extreme and 
clung to no dogma at all. For a brief period 
I experienced a sort of exultant, reckless joy in 
my newly acquired independence. It was de- 
lightful to think that I was not bound to ac- 
cept as authoritative any religious creed or any 



24 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

code of philosophy laid down in any book. I 
was, after all, arbiter of my own fate. I could 
do as I pleased so long as I did not positively 
injure others. I might be a creature that was 
to live for all eternity for aught I knew. I 
knew nothing about it. But, I reasoned, if this 
be so, there is time enough for learning one's 
lessons. I shall reach my destination in time 
or eternity, and if I dilly-dally a little on the 
way it only hinders my own progress and harms 
no one else. Was this all? No. There 
made itself heard within me a voice which said : 
" To refrain from injury to your neighbor is 
not enough. You must do no harm to your- 
self. You are bound to your fellow creatures. 
Any injury to yourself will necessarily be felt by 
them. You must preserve inviolate the purity 
of your own nature. You must seek knowl- 
edge and you must diffuse light." 

Yet I was a creature of moods, now happy, 
now the reverse, altogether subject to them, 
and suffering much from self-condemnation. 
I do not, however, claim a monopoly in suffer- 
ing, nor do I propose to discuss these uninter- 
esting things here, further than to say that as 
soon as I found that I need not be slave, but 
might be master, of both physical sensation and 
mental mood, I began to make some headway, 
and I believe it was the reading of Plato that 
first gave me an insight into this important 
truth. 



Ill 

MEANS OF LIVELIHOOD 

I had a great desire to live in a large city 
where I might come in contact with all phases 
of life and take advantage of the opportunities 
which such a centre affords. After leaving 
school I resided a short time in Philadelphia, 
where I practically began the battle of life. 
From the time I set foot in Boston, in 1881, 
my hands and my mind have been fully occu- 
pied, and the gaining of a sufficient livelihood 
has been a comparatively easy matter. 

I was engaged from the very first in steno- 
graphic and clerical work, mostly stenographic. 
For a few years I occupied a position in the of- 
fice of a commercial firm. From 1885 to 
1899 I served as official stenographer in the 
office of what was then the Board of Police of 
the city of Boston, reporting hearings, confer- 
ences, conversations, and during the last five 
years of that period acting as private secretary 
to the chairman of the board. From 1900 to 
1902 I was private secretary to the Water 
Commissioner of the city, whose office was at 
City Hall. From 1903 to the present time, 
1909, I have been engaged in the office of a 
Bureau of the Massachusetts State Board of 
Agriculture. These several periods stand out 
25 



26 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

clearly in my own mind, and reference to them 
may have to be made in the following chapters. 

In addition to this regular occupation I had 
other work which occupied much of my spare 
time, it being mostly, however, of the same na- 
ture as my daily work. In Philadelphia I had 
studied a system of shorthand-writing which 
was then new, a system which its author claim- 
ed was equal to any of the older systems in its 
adaptability and yet was much more easily ac- 
quired. Soon after reaching Boston I was ask- 
ed to teach the system, and from that time on, 
for the next ten or twelve years, I had all the 
private pupils I could well attend to, teaching 
both by correspondence and by personal les- 
sons. I was obliged finally to drop this on ac- 
count of the increasing pressure of other work. 

The civil service law of Massachusetts was 
enacted in 1884. The rules went into effect 
early in 1885 and were thereafter applied as 
rapidly as possible to the various departments 
of public service. Henry Sherwin, who has 
been Chief Examiner for the civil service 
from 1884 to the present day, was just be- 
ginning to gather around him a corps of as- 
sistants in his special work of examination, a 
work which has grown enormously since its in- 
itiation. Soon after my own examination I 
was appointed one of the examiners, having 
been a member of one board continuously from 
that time to this, and serving from 1902 to 



MEANS OF LIVELIHOOD 27 

1907, inclusive, as a member of two other 
boards. 

As I look back I can see many events which 
apparently happened, yet it seems to me now 
that nothing really ever happens. That is 
our word for something which seems to come 
by chance, but which may in reality have been 
a long time in preparing. If one has a pur- 
pose in life, or a serious intent, the person and 
the event are somehow brought together when 
the time is ripe for the accomplishment of the 
purpose or the furthering of the intent. 

For instance, when I began teaching short- 
hand my system was not perfected; the author 
was making improvements in it, and I did not 
feel that I had it sufficiently at my command to 
undertake the teaching of it. Yet I was afraid 
to let the opportunity slip. I had a dim 
notion, even then, of unused organs becoming 
atrophied, and of lost opportunities blocking 
the appearance of others. I looked at life in 
its youth as a narrow stream of water running 
between high banks. So long as the stream 
does not swell, gains no accretions, it cannot 
branch off into other channels or flow out into 
meadow lakes. And so I accepted the task, my 
pupils agreeing to follow me in any changes 
which might be introduced, and the system was 
thereafter gradually perfected. 

About this time it happened that William 
H. Lee, who for many years filled the position 



28 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

of Clerk of Committees for the City Govern- 
ment, wanted to know something about the new 
system of shorthand and engaged me to teach 
it to him. It happened, again, that in the 
year 1885 the charter of the city of Boston was 
amended by the legislature of Massachusetts, 
and, among other changes made, the control of 
the large police force of the city was taken 
from the mayor and city council and put into 
the hands of a commission of three, who were 
appointed by the Governor of the Common- 
wealth, to whom they were answerable for the 
proper management of the force. Mr. Lee 
was appointed one of the members of this first 
Metropolitan Board of Police, serving for nine 
years. When he took office, in 1885, he was 
broad-minded enough to see that the position 
of reporter for the board could, not improper- 
ly, be filled by a woman, in which opinion his 
fellow-members of the board coincided. At 
that time there were comparatively few women 
occupying positions as official stenographers or 
court reporters, though there are many such to- 
day. 

There was apparently very little significance 
attaching to the question of whether I should 
or should not do a little teaching, whether I 
wished or did not wish to spend my time in 
that way, but if I had not undertaken it at 
just the time that I did, I should never have 
been drawn into the particular associations, or 



MEANS OF LIVELIHOOD 29 

into the particular stream of events, the out- 
come of which seems to me of sufficient im- 
portance and interest to put upon permanent 
record and offer to others. That matter re- 
mains, however, for the reader to decide for 
himself. 

My years in the police department were of 
the greatest benefit to me, disciplining me in 
many ways. The nature of the work required 
the concentration of all my powers in order to 
accomplish it with any degree of satisfaction to 
myself. The humanism of our common life, 
in aspects humorous and again interesting even 
to pathos, was often brought out in occurrences 
which took place before my eyes, and the 
camaraderie of my daily associations, deepen- 
ing in some instances into the sincerity of 
friendship, will long be treasured in my 
memory. 

Far be it from me to belittle any kind of 
work, of any grade whatever, performed in 
public or private capacity. The machinery of 
government of this great Country must be 
kept moving. The greater the skill and the 
intelligence of the thousands of men and 
women who stand behind the wheels, the 
better the government. And what is govern- 
ment for but to serve the people. Serve them 
how? By helping them to live healthy, nor- 
mal, peaceful, progressive lives. 

Yet all the while there has been with me an 



30 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

undercurrent of unrest, a feeling that some one 
else might fill my place just as well or better 
than I, and a secret wish that I might do some 
little work in the course of my life that should 
be of a different grade and of more permanent 
value. 

And why is it of any consequence to speak 
here of my work at all? It is simply this: 
since I have been trusted by city and state, my 
work generally approved and placed on file 
among public records, and since I have been 
accredited with sanity and a fair degree of in- 
telligence, I ask, in all humility, that the same 
courtesy and confidence be extended to me 
when I offer records of other matters of an en- 
tirely different nature from that which is known 
as " red tape " of government work. 




LEONORA E. PIPER 

IN EARLY MARRIED LIFE 



IV 

EARLY ACQUAINTANCE WITH 
MRS. PIPER 

1885 

It was during the winter of 1884-5 tnat I 
became acquainted with Mrs. Leonora E. 
Piper, the famous psychic who for so many 
years has been generously contributing of her 
time and her special gifts to the cause of 
spiritual science, under the auspices of the 
English Society for Psychical Research. I 
was invited one evening with a personal friend 
to a family gathering of about a dozen people, 
because of my newly awakened interest in phe- 
nomena called psychical. Mr. Piper, senior, 
was present, as were also Mrs. Piper and her 
husband. The personality of Mrs. Piper, 
then a young woman, with her sweet, pure, 
refined and gentle countenance, attracted me at 
once. 

The company sat around a large table, and I 
think there were one or two sensitives pres- 
ent who made some little exhibition of their 
powers, but nothing occurred that made any 
impression upon me, or that remained in 
my memory, outside of what was connected 
with Mrs. Piper. During the course of the 
3i 



32 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

evening she retired with one or two of her 
friends to a small room adjoining and opening 
into the large room in which the company was 
assembled, and, as I understood, " went under 
control," whatever that might mean. It was 
something new and strange to me. I think she 
had not then begun to give sittings outside of 
the immediate circle of her own family, but 
was in the process of developing her powers. 
Her husband explained to me that she 
was a little bashful about going into trance 
under the eyes of other people, and for that 
reason had retired to the smaller room. I 
heard the sound as of some one talking in a 
low tone issuing from the small room, and as I 
remember Mr. Piper told me that the poet 
Longfellow was supposed to be speaking 
through his wife, and a little later in the even- 
ing that " Dr. Phinuit " had arrived. 

" Dr. Phinuit " was the name assumed by 
the early spirit-control of Mrs. Piper. He 
claimed to have been a French physician who 
passed out of the body somewhere in the 
vicinity of twenty-five years previous to his re- 
turning through the organism of Mrs. Piper. 
While under the control of Phinuit, Mrs. 
Piper rose and walked out into the large room, 
and the control addressed a few remarks to the 
company in general. I chanced to be standing 
near Mrs. Piper with the lady who was my 
companion that evening, and Dr. Phinuit 



ACQUAINTANCE OF MRS. PIPER 33 

[Mrs. P.] put his hand on my shoulder and 
said in his emphatic way, addressing us both, 
" You are very harmonious." 

This was my introduction to Dr. Phinuit, 
dear old Phinuit of those early days, for it 
proved in course of time that, in spite of any 
and all idiosyncrasies and crudities which this 
personality displayed, he succeeded in endear- 
ing himself to all those with whom he had 
numerous conversations, probably without ex- 
ception, some of whom speak of him to this 
day with familiar affection. 

I lost no time in making an appointment for 
a private interview with Mrs. Piper, to take 
place as soon as she might be ready to see me, 
and my notebook gives April, 1885, as the date 
of my first sitting. This antedates by some 
months Professor William James's acquaint- 
ance with her, and he is the person who intro- 
duced her, in May, 1887, to the man who be- 
came the first American Secretary of the Eng- 
lish Society for Psychical Research. Up to 
the time when Professor James made her ac- 
quaintance, in the autumn of 1885, she was not 
known as a psychic, nor even as a person who 
gave promise of developing psychic gifts, ex- 
cept to a small number of friends and acquaint- 
ances of her immediate family. 

The hour was to me one of extreme fascina- 
tion. Was Dr. Phinuit really a discarnate 
spirit, temporarily and partially incarnated in 



34 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

this woman's body for the purpose of convers- 
ing with me? If so, how fortunate was I to 
be witness of so mysterious and interesting a 
phenomenon, interesting and significant wholly 
apart from what was said in the trance. For 
let it be remembered that I am not presuming 
to discuss the nature of the trance from the 
standpoint of psychology. I realize that what 
is said while the medium is entranced is to the 
psychologist all-important in his interpreta- 
tion of the phenomena as such. I wish to 
record only observations and impressions, leav- 
ing theoretics to the scientist, to whom they 
properly belong. And while I may speak of 
my impressions as if they conveyed to me facts, 
I understand that the scientist must have some- 
thing more than impressions before he can 
put before the world what he calls scientific 
truth. 

I found that Dr. Phinuit understood me, — 
and who does not flatter himself that he is not 
ordinarily understood? He seemed to know 
all about my good points and somehow to 
have a special knowledge of my failings, and 
from that time on he sustained the relation of 
adviser and friend. I was altogether too 
proud to impart my secrets to even the closest 
living acquaintance, yet, confession being good 
for the soul, I found myself confessing freely 
to Phinuit. But although I may have ap- 
peared to those who knew me during this 



ACQUAINTANCE OF MRS. PIPER 35 

period foolishly eager to get advice from such 
a friend, or from any supposed spirit who pro- 
fessed to be able to give advice, I laid it down 
as a working principle, in the very earliest 
days of my investigations, not to follow the 
advice of any psychic which was contrary to 
the dictates of my own judgment. I do not 
consider that any one who has not respect 
enough for his own judgment to consult it and 
to follow it in the conduct of his material af- 
fairs, even though it may conflict at times with 
what purports to be advice from spirit friends, 
is a fit person to carry on investigations into 
psychical phenomena. 

I did not have frequent sittings with Mrs. 
Piper, but I had a number each year under 
the Phinuit regime during a period of ten 
years, which extended to September, 1895, 
with the exception of one season when Mrs. 
Piper was abroad; then there was a break of 
several years for various reasons, Mrs. Piper 
not being able to give sittings all of this time 
on account of ill health, and in December, 
1899, I had my first sitting under the latter- 
day regime, an account of which will be given 
later. 

My first sitting, in April, 1885, took place 
about three months after the death of a friend 
whose acquaintance I had made when living in 
Philadelphia, by name Hiram Hart. [In old 
reports he is called " H."] Dr. Phinuit ad- 



36 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

vised me to wait about eight months longer, 
saying that by that time I should probably 
hear from this friend. I waited that length 
of time, and I did hear from him, as it seemed, 
and I witnessed the interesting phenomenon of 
the gradual development of a new control, for 
in the course of a little time Hiram Hart suc- 
ceeded in controlling the organism almost as 
well as did Phinuit himself, and during all this 
period of ten years he was my special com- 
municator, though never, of course, occupy- 
ing more than a portion of the time at any 
one sitting. [See Proc. S. P. R., Part 
XXXIII, pp. 289-290.] 

The Phinuit regime is ancient history now 
in the Piper case, and I will not dwell on it 
here at length. A general account of these 
early sittings of mine was given to the S. P. 
R. and is included in an article entitled " Ob- 
servations of Certain Phenomena of Trance " 
in part XXI of the Proceedings, pp. 1 1 1-1 14. 
But Hiram Hart has shown the persistent fidel- 
ity of a returning spirit, and has been, so to 
speak, a " friend at court " on the Other Side, 
keeping himself modestly in the background 
in these latter years because there has not 
been time for me to hold much communica- 
tion with him, but appearing for brief mo- 
ments whenever he could serve my interests 
in any way in my other relations, or sending 
to me a message of remembrance. 



ACQUAINTANCE OF MRS. PIPER 37 

It has been my habit, from the very be- 
ginning, ' to make notes of sittings very soon 
after they occurred, unless I had taken full 
notes during the hour, which has been my in- 
variable custom of late years, and I have 
notes preserved either in shorthand or tran- 
scriptions of nearly every sitting that I ever 
had with Mrs. Piper or any other psychic. 

Mrs. Piper builded better than she knew 
when she elected to reside at Arlington 
Heights. The place is one of the loveliest of 
Boston's lovely suburbs. For the dweller in 
the city like myself, it was most restful to take 
a train in the morning at an hour when the 
tide of humanity sets toward the city, thus 
leaving the suburbs quiet; to ascend to the 
top of the " Heights " through an avenue 
shaded its entire length by beautiful trees; to 
meet Mrs. Piper's serene face; to mount still 
higher to an upper chamber, lock the door, 
watch the psychic while she seems to lose all 
consciousness of my presence, and then be free 
to commune with — whom? 



RICHARD HODGSON AND 
PSYCHICAL RESEARCH 



I find in my notebook a memorandum to the 
effect that it was on Feb. 10, 1888, that I 
first met Richard Hodgson at the rooms of 
the S. P. R. at 5 Boylston place, Boston. He 
had come from England early the preceding 
year and established himself in the city, act- 
ing first as secretary of the old American 
Psychical Research Society, which in 1890 be- 
came the American Branch of the English 
Society, which latter organization he repre- 
sented for the next fifteen years. I believe 
he was then looking up and interviewing Mrs. 
Piper's early sitters and I had a note of in- 
troduction to him from Mrs. Piper herself, 
but found her at the rooms when I called and 
was introduced in person by her. From that 
time on during the years I saw him occasion- 
ally, not frequently. I communicated with 
him oftener than I saw him. I at first offered 
service to the Society in the line of reporting, 
and assisted Dr. Hodgson at times during the 
period of my acquaintance, sometimes gratui- 
tously and sometimes being employed by him 
38 




RICHARD HODGSON 

IN HIS FIFTIETH YEAR 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH 39 

to make verbatim stenographic reports of sit- 
tings, or copy of records already made. I 
learned his methods and became familiar with 
the technicalities of his system of keeping 
records of sittings with notes thereon. Aside 
from the Piper work I occasionally had sit- 
tings with other psychics with whom he had 
not time to carry on investigations, for the pur- 
pose of enabling him to answer more intelli- 
gently the numerous inquiries that were made 
at the rooms of the Society, as to where to 
find professionals who could be recommended 
as having some psychical powers. I always 
took notes and made more or less full reports 
to him of such sittings, which went on file 
with the S. P. R. 

I find that I reported a Piper sitting for 
him, which he could not attend and which I 
think was one in a series of sittings carried on 
by some members of the American Society at 
that time in existence, as early as March 6, 
1888, and in May and June of the same year 
I attended a short series of sittings given by 
Mrs. Piper for the express purpose of allow- 
ing Dr. Hodgson to find out what he could 
in his own way about the Phinuit personality. 
[See Proceedings S. P. R., Part XXI, pp. 2-3 
and 59.] We three met on successive Satur- 
day evenings, Dr. Hodgson giving his time 
and his effort, I giving my report, and Mrs. 
Piper giving her services. This series was 



4 o BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

interrupted after the fifth sitting, but those 
five Saturday evenings were memorable, each 
one of three entering upon the undertaking 
in the happiest of moods, and each one stand- 
ing by his or her part of the agreement. Dr. 
Hodgson asked questions and tried various 
harmless experiments, or what seemed to him 
at that time harmless, such as putting salt on 
the psychic's tongue when in trance, for the 
purpose or ascertaining whether Phinuit was 
conscious of it in the trance or whether Mrs. 
Piper was conscious of it on coming out of the 
trance. These experiments are not for me to 
discuss here. But I will say that about twelve 
years later, in 1900, in some correspondence 
with me regarding the transformations that 
had taken place in ourselves during those 
dozen years, Dr. Hodgson admitted that what 
he knew in 1888 about the care with which 
the person of the psychic should be guarded 
while in trance and the conditions which should 
precede a sitting, was mere folly compared 
with the knowledge he had then gained by 
his experience. 

I remember the freshness of his enthusiasm 
of those early days, his intense eagerness to 
" find out what is on the Other Side of the 
Veil." He told me then that he would not 
allow himself to follow any profession or be 
engaged in any occupation for the mere sake 
of making money, that he would pursue only 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH 41 

that kind of work in life in which his heart 
and his soul could be absorbed, with money 
if possible, without it if necessary. 

In all probability the very first attempts at 
automatic writing by Mrs. Piper occurred in 
some of my sittings. [See Proc. S. P. R., 
Part XXXIII, p. 292.] The writing there 
referred to as having occurred on May 23, 
1 89 1, was the first I had of any length. It 
was by the control " Hiram Hart." Distinct 
messages were given and I was asked to com- 
pare the writing with his own when in life. 
I did compare it, being convinced myself of 
the appearance in it of more than one old 
peculiarity, which I did not think, however, 
were sufficiently marked to be clear to others. 
Dr. Hodgson also made the comparison as an 
expert on handwriting, and would not admit 
that there was any similarity worthy of men- 
tion between the two styles except in the one 
capital letter " H." This he could not deny 
was very much like the old style. 

I have only recently discovered in Part 
XXXIII, Proc. S. P. R., p. 399, a discussion 
by Dr. Hodgson of early attempts at writing, 
and a footnote which reads as follows : 

"Miss R. (p. 292), whose friend was apparently 
the first to write at all, using the hand while ' con- 
trolling ' the body generally, and also using the hand 
while Phinuit was controlling the voice, has shown 
me some of this early writing and some writing of 



42 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

her friend when living. Some peculiarities were 
common to both, but not enough to found an argu- 
ment upon as to the identity of the communicator." 

Previous to this date, December 8, 1888, 
Phinuit wrote my name and his name, and 
Hiram Hart wrote his own name. The two 
styles of writing were quite dissimilar. 

I have three words written by the Hart 
control at a still earlier date, on July 2, 1888. 

All three of these instances antedate the 
occurrence of any writing of which I have 
ever seen any account. These specimens are 
reproduced on the facing page, with the excep- 
tion that I have given only one of the three 
words mentioned as coming on the very ear- 
liest date. 

It will be noticed that on Dec. 8, 1888, a 
new way of spelling the Christian name 
" Hiram " occurs. There was more or less 
joking about this afterwards between myself 
and the control Hart, the latter insisting upon 
it that he really did know how to spell 
his own Christian name. I am sure that such 
inaccuracies as this, especially in early attempts 
at automatic writing, can now be easily ex- 
plained by the experienced investigator who is 
himself a psychologist; or, rather, I should 
say that if they cannot be explained — since 
I believe the trance itself is not yet really ex- 
plained — they form no hindrance to the ac- 
ceptance of the theory, in a general way, that 




CTTV 



Written by Hiram Hart, July 2, 



$S 



Written by Hiram Hart, May 23, 1891 




Written by 

Dr. Phinuit 

** May 23, 1891 



Written by Mrs. Piper, May 23, 1891 
In her normal state after coming out of trance 




V^7 

Written by Dr. Phinuit, Dec. 8, 1888 

(/Written by Hiram Hart, Dec. 8 1888 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH 43 

intelligences on the Other Side are endeavor- 
ing to communicate with intelligences on this 
side, through an intermediary, by the ordinary 
method of handwriting. 

In the winter of 1892-3 came the extremely 
interesting series of sittings arranged by Dr. 
Hodgson for the express purpose of obtaining 
further communications from that remarkable 
personality, George Pelham, who died in the 
preceding February, and made himself known 
to some of his friends within a few weeks 
after his death. The history of the early G. 
P. communications, as they are called, is given 
in detail by Dr. Hodgson in Part XXXIII 
of the S. P. R. Proceedings, February, 1898, 
with which all students of psychical research 
are doubtless familiar. The sittings of this 
series took place in the evening, when I was 
able to attend as reporter. It is needless to 
say that all this work was most interesting 
and fascinating to me, and I considered myself 
specially favored in having opportunity to per- 
form it. 

In September, 1895, I had my last conver- 
sation with the personality known as Dr. 
Phinuit, though of course I did not know at 
the time that it was to be my last, or I should 
have felt that I was taking leave of a dear 
faithful friend. There was an interval of 
four years during which I had no sittings. 
Mrs. Piper was ill a portion of the time and 



44 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

was not giving sittings, and when she did give 
them I was not knowing to all that was going 
on in the affairs of the trance. I knew that 
it had taken on an entirely new phase, that 
the number of sitters had been reduced to a 
comparatively small one. I learned later that 
strange things had taken place, and that in 
the course of the year 1897 Dr. Phinuit was 
displaced by other controls, and a new regime 
was established. I presumed there was so 
much of greater importance of which Dr. 
Hodgson had charge, in the conduct of his 
work, that my small affairs had been lost sight 
of altogether. I feared I had had my last talk 
with my old friend Hiram Hart. In fact, 
I thought my connection with the Piper work 
had come to an end, whereas the truth is that 
by far the most important part of it was to 
come. 

It was in the fall of 1899 that I resigned 
my position in the police department, and for 
a period of about three months I enjoyed a 
rest from routine work. Hardly had I found 
myself at leisure when Dr. Hodgson asked for 
my assistance to make copy of a volume of 
records of communications which had been re- 
ceived in the course of the two preceding sea- 
sons and after the important change in the 
mediumship had taken place. Much of this 
matter proved to be most fascinating reading 
and the volume had for me an absorbing 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH 45 

interest. For a few brief weeks just at this 
time I was living absolutely alone in a good- 
sized apartment, the friend with whom I 
shared the apartment being absent temporarily. 
If a diary kept during these weeks had re- 
corded that I " rose betimes, breakfasted, 
copied, lunched, copied, supped, copied, re- 
tired," it would not have been far from the 
truth. And I went to my bed singing and 
slept the sleep of a child. While one world 
was entirely, in accordance with my wish, shut 
out by the brick walls of my own apartment, 
I myself was being introduced to a new and 
different world. There were in these records 
descriptions of life on the Other Side of the 
Veil, supposed to be given by one or more 
persons whose names are well known to Eng- 
lish speaking people, which were most enter- 
taining. But of these matters I am not priv- 
ileged nor do I wish to speak in detail here. 
They are private records now in the possession 
of the English S. P. R., the publication of 
which lies in the discretion of the Council of 
that body. Suffice it to say that I could not 
lay the volume down for more than a moment 
at a time, but kept it in my hand from morn- 
ing till night. 

While this work was going on or when 
nearly finished I was surprised one day to re- 
ceive a note from Dr. Hodgson saying that 
I might have a sitting. I went to the Heights 



46 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

on Dec. 20, 1899, Dr. Hodgson accompany- 
ing me. I was practically introduced on that 
day to the group of personalities on the Other 
Side who have been, as it appears, managing 
the communications from that side ever since, 
among whom " Imperator " is supposed to be 
the leader, " Rector " the amanuensis and in- 
terpreter, who controls and looks after the 
organism generally while the psychic is en- 
tranced, " Prudens," " Grocyn," and the 
" Doctor " members, all evidently assumed 
appellations; to which group George Pelham, 
F. W. H. Myers, and one or two others 
whose names are prominent have from time 
to time been added; to say nothing of numer- 
ous lesser lights, friends and relatives of in- 
dividual sitters whom they have been and still 
are trying to reach. 

The reader who is not familiar with these 
matters is referred to past regular publications 
of the English S. P. R., also to a book called 
" Spirit Teachings," published by William 
Stainton Moses under the pseudonym of M. 
A. Oxon, London, 1883; a remarkable book 
which is full of the spiritual teachings of the 
trance personality calling itself Imperator. 

At this first sitting under the new regime, 
behold my old friend Hiram Hart appeared 
once more. Dr. Hodgson left the room tem- 
porarily while I conversed with my friend. 
He had neither progressed out of remem- 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH 47 

brance of me, it seems, nor had he been un- 
faithful to early ties, but the moment there 
was opportunity he was on hand. He asked 
if I knew that he had been calling for me for 
a long time, but in reply to my question said 
he had been told why I could not come. The 
method of communication on this occasion was 
by writing. My friend made some of his 
peculiar H's, and when I said, " Hodgson 
doesn't believe in those H's, does he?" he 
replied : " I do not know or care ; I know I 
am I ... . and that is I am Hiram 
Hart." 

There were statements made to me at this 
and a second sitting occurring a few weeks later 
which proved in the light of subsequent events 
to be so important that they mark an epoch 
in my life. But these I shall have to reserve 
for a further chapter. 



VI 
ASSOCIATION WITH A. P. MARTIN 

1894 

In 1894 Augustus P. Martin was appointed 
to the chairmanship of the board of police 
and came to the office where I had already- 
served nine years. I had never previously 
met him, though from his having been for a 
long time prominent in the commercial and 
social life of Boston I knew him by reputation 
and had seen him in his accustomed place on 
Sundays at church. At one time he had been 
mayor of the city. In fact, it was just ten 
years previous to this that he had served as 
mayor, and it was during the year immediately 
following his term of office that the amend- 
ments to the city charter, previously men- 
tioned, went into force, under which the board 
of police was created, to which he now came 
as its head. 

The five years of his term of office as head 
of the police department were crowded full 
of serious and responsible work for him, and 
I was allowed to have my share in it as one 
of his assistants. During those five years I 
seemed to be living under a sort of .pater- 
nalism, different from anything I had ever 
48 




AUGUSTUS P. MARTIN 

IN HIS FIFTIETH YEAR 



ASSOCIATION WITH MR. MARTIN 49 

known. He was in public office what I imag- 
ine an old Roman patrician might have been. 
He was like a father to all young people who 
were in the employ of the department of 
which he had charge, especially to women. 
The invasion of the business world by women 
had taken place mostly in his day and he be- 
lieved that this step was freighted with in- 
calculable benefit to both sexes. 

He had the faculty of appealing to and 
calling out the best in his subordinates. The 
geniality of his nature and the kindly cour- 
tesy of his manner made themselves felt like 
sunlight in the quarters which he occupied 
daily, and during all my experience in office 
life I have never known a man more loved 
by other men than was he. Men were glad 
to come, if for a few brief moments only, 
into the warmth of his presence, and seldom 
one left it without feeling better for it. This 
is not my own prejudiced opinion merely, for 
I have heard his occupancy of a public chair 
characterized as " dignity, sweetness and 
light." < 

He listened patiently to the complaint of 
the poorest petitioner for justice or applicant 
for assistance, and in cases which called for 
the rendering of a judgment he generally 
showed himself possessed of a wisdom and a 
sense of justice such that his friends often 
jokingly told him that he had missed his call- 



5 o BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

ing in life and should have been a judge on 
the bench. 

But with all his gentleness of manner and 
kindness of heart, his mentality was original 
and forceful. He did not always follow in 
the footsteps of his predecessors. It was his 
habit first to decide upon what policy it was 
best to pursue, and then, if ordinary methods 
were not adequate for putting the policy into 
effect, to devise others. Not that he never 
erred in judgment or in conduct. In fact, he 
was one of the most natural human beings 
I have ever known, and humanity does err. 
His naturalness was his charm. But, I am 
not writing a biography. 

The General — for as such he was popu- 
larly known — left the police department at 
the expiration of his term of office, in the 
spring of 1899, and it was in the fall of that 
same year that I gave up my position also. 
The association seemed to have come to an 
end. Oct. 5 was the date of my leaving. On 
Oct. 16 a certain psychic [Mrs. G.] whom I 
saw occasionally told me that I was to go 
back to my old position, that something more 
was to be required of me, and on Nov. 30 
another psychic [Mrs. S.] told me practically 
the same thing. They were both very posi- 
tive in their statements, and both said I was 
to go back for a short time only. I set these 
predictions down at once as incorrect, for my 



ASSOCIATION WITH MR. MARTIN 5 1 

feeling against returning was so strong that 
I thought no possible inducement could take 
me back. On Dec. 13 I had persuaded Gen- 
eral Martin, who was then at leisure at his 
home, to accompany me on a visit to one of 
these same psychics [Mrs. S.], who prophe- 
sied for him, in plain language, that another 
high office or position was to be offered him. 
Then came my first private sitting with Mrs. 
Piper under the new regime, previously men- 
tioned, which took place on Dec. 20, at which 
I was accompanied by Dr. Hodgson. 

Dr. Hodgson had chided me, taking the 
ground of worldly wisdom, for having re- 
signed the position I had held so long, not un- 
derstanding all my reasons for so doing, but 
when I appealed to Imperator as to whether 
I had done right or wrong, the latter unhesi- 
tatingly replied: 

" Right, and made the way for a new life, 
new scenes, new enterprises, new conditions, 
whereby thou wilt be completely thine own 
master. Regret not thy act." 

And Dr. Hodgson had, of course, to sub- 
mit to the opinion of the personality for whom 
he had so great a respect. In speaking of 
future work Imperator said: 

" There are many that are thy friends and 
who would give thee much help and will with- 
out any effort of thine own, remember, friend. 
We often say seek and ye shall find. In this 



52 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

case we say seek not, and if we be obeyed, 
every detail will be made known to thee. We 
[see thee] receiving communications from thy 
past surroundings which will verify all we 
now give utterance to." 

It happened that Josiah Quincy, who was 
mayor of Boston that year, just before leaving 
the mayor's chair and as almost his last offi- 
cial act, appointed General Martin to the 
position of water commissioner for the city, 
which position he accepted and took up his 
duties in the beginning of the year 1900. 
This was a complete surprise to me, and I 
understand was an equal surprise to the ap- 
pointee. On Jan. 12 I received a request 
from the new water commissioner to present 
myself at City Hall for the purpose of ren- 
dering him some assistance, although not then 
as an employee of the department. On the 
very same day, the 12th, to my astonishment 
I received a letter from Dr. Hodgson saying 
that Imperator had especially asked him to 
arrange another sitting for me with Mrs. 
Piper, that I was to go alone, that it was im- 
portant for my own good, after which it might 
not be necessary for me to go again for some 
time. 

I went to City Hall on the 15 th. I did 
not feel at all certain in my own mind that it 
was best to engage myself in a position there 
permanently. Imperator had hinted new 



ASSOCIATION WITH MR. MARTIN 5.3 

fields, new scenes, etc. I was a little puffed 
up by these suggestions, and, although it was 
a pleasure to assist General Martin in any kind 
of work, 1 secretly hoped that my service in 
government departments had come to an end, 
that the monotony of my life was to be bro- 
ken, and that I might take wing for some dis- 
tant spot, I cared not where. 

On the 17th I went again to Mrs. Piper. 
Imperator said: 

" Thou art being cared for in all ways and 
we have thy interests at stake, friend, and we 
are leading thee in the right way now. Let 
us tell thee that within a few short weeks thou 
wilt see a great change in thy life for the very 
best. A position will be given thee without 
thy seeking it. As we were closing our last 
meeting we saw a light before thee of which 
we could not then speak and we have chosen 
this opportunity to do so." 

Very shortly after this I was appointed to 
a position in the water department and the 
old association was renewed, City Hall being 
only a stone's throw from the old locality. I 
therefore considered that the prophecy made 
by the two psychics was almost literally ful- 
filled. Imperator, however, seemed to see 
this still more clearly, and said: "We warn 
thee not to re-enter the former surroundings, 
we desire thee to keep apart from it altogether, 
and we ask thee to dare not disobey our lead- 



54 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

ings." He had seen me " receiving communi- 
cations from my past surroundings," which 
was correct, but did not see me going back to 
the identical position in the police department. 
All three psychics saw the same event, which 
was to take place and did take place, Mrs. 
Piper seeing it more clearly than the other 
two psychics, as I reread my notes to-day. 

I have thought best to give these items in 
detail in this particular instance, since they all 
are so closely related. The subject of fore- 
sight, however, is one on which I do not wish 
to express here any definite opinion whatever, 
nor to assume an understanding of it. Coming 
events cast their shadows before, which we 
ourselves, with our normal sight, can some- 
times perceive. It is human, especially when 
one is in trouble or doubt, to want to know 
something about what is to take place, but it 
is not dignified to seek to know about the fu- 
ture to the extent of having one's serenity dis- 
turbed in the performance of the duty of the 
day. In fact, it seems to me that it is only 
in the conscientious performance of the daily 
duty, without undue anxiety about the future, 
that desirable changes are brought about. We 
bring them about ourselves. We work stead- 
ily toward them and by some occult law we 
draw to ourselves that which we really need, 
that of which we are deserving and for which 



ASSOCIATION WITH MR. MARTIN $S 

we are prepared. Outward affairs, in the life 
of a serious-minded person, seem to follow 
and correspond with inward change and 
growth. 



VII 

APPARENT FAILURE OF PREDIC- 
TION 

1900-1902 

To go back to the sitting of Jan. 17, 1900, 
with Mrs. Piper, mentioned in the preceding 
chapter. Of all the sittings which I can re- 
member, this one made the deepest impression 
upon me. After a few lines of script the 
pencil was dropped from the psychic's hand 
and the voice taken, and for nearly two hours 
conversation was carried on. Before the time 
was up I threw away my own pen and paper, 
gave up the effort to take notes, and had a 
heart to heart talk with the trance personalities. 

It was my first experience with Rector's use 
of the voice. His style differed so greatly 
from the familiar style of Phinuit, or even 
from that of my friend Hiram Hart, that I 
realized at once that I was conversing with a 
different individuality. He was so dignified, 
so kind, so sympathetic, so serious, so desirous 
of assisting me to lift my life to a higher level, 
that I was almost overcome. How these 
newly found spirits, whoever they might be, 
should know so much about me, I could not 
understand. I thought myself a stranger to 
5* 



FAILURE OF PREDICTION 57 

them, but they seemed to know me through 
and through. They saw in me capacity which 
I only half recognized in myself, and they 
seemed to think me worthy of their time, 
their effort, their assistance, and they en- 
deavored to convince me of the fact that 
my life was of some importance and must 
not be undervalued by me. The period of 
fourteen years in one spot, just then 
ended, had seemed long and difficult to 
me, yet Imperator now called it " only a short 
school for thee." So brief evidently do the 
decades seem to the discarnate eye which takes 
in the wider span. 

Hiram Hart came and said: " Oh, I bless 
the day when I found you here. I do not see 
you very often now. I come here and take a 
look and do not see you and then go away." 
" Here " means at the scene of operations, the 
point of communication, which is always where 
Mrs. Piper happens for the time to be located. 

But the most important statement made to 
me by Imperator on this occasion, in speaking 
of my again being associated with General 
Martin, was the following: 

" We see thee and him writing a book 
together." 

I asked: "What about?" 

" It is concerning the natural things in life 
and many different conditions of thy life, 
which will be put together in a form of phi- 



58 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

losophy. It will be so in spite of anything 
which thou mayst think to the contrary." 

It was true we were able to work well to- 
gether, or so at least I flattered myself. Both 
the commercial world and the official world 
to-day are full of just such combinations of 
men as directors and women as right-hand as- 
sistants. A woman serving in the capacity of 
private secretary to a man whose mind is filled 
with the affairs of his office and whose time is 
precious should be able to adapt herself to his 
peculiarities, complement his weaknesses, and 
stand respectfully and safely aside from his 
strength. Women have an intuitive percep- 
tion of these things, and even a young woman 
who has not had experience is often easily able 
to adjust herself to the requirements of such 
a position. At any rate, when in a haphazard 
selection the right combination is formed, a 
better than the ordinary grade of work ought 
to be expected and more than the usual amount 
can be accomplished. 

I will say here that as far back as when I 
was at school I made up my mind that, what- 
ever else I did, I would not attempt to become 
an author. That was not to be my field. 
Others were more naturally fitted for it. I 
must have other work to do. Later in life, 
when I found myself struggling along in doubt 
and mental darkness, and occasionally the solu- 
tion of some problem would relieve my mind, 



FAILURE OF PREDICTION 59 

I flattered myself secretly that sometime I 
might gather together into a sort of whole 
the solutions of the various problems which 
had presented themselves to me, and inflict the 
mass in printed form upon others. Still later, 
I came to the conclusion that every problem, 
without exception, with which I had battled 
had been met and solved ages before I was 
born; I found that the wisdom of all the great 
philosophers had been handed down and was 
accessible to all who could read, and therefore 
I again dropped the idea of ever entering the 
field of authorship. Not that it is a difficult 
thing in these days to write and publish a 
book of some kind, but I concluded that there 
were too many books in the world. The 
world be better off if there were only half 
as many. But when Imperator marked out 
my path for me in the manner above given, I 
confess to at least a little surprise, and on 
another later occasion, when I remarked to him 
that I did not wish to publish a book simply 
from a sense of duty, he replied : 

" Friend, to write a book, it is thy doom or 
duty, one and both combined." 

I did not speak of this particular matter to 
General Martin. He was eager to hear all I 
was willing to report, but while I gave him 
much, I also withheld much. I simply told 
him in a general way that it was said we were 
yet to do some special work together. I was 



6o BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

afraid and ashamed to tell him. I had long 
before learned to keep prophecies to myself 
until I saw some sign of their fulfilment. He 
was a man of family ties, of many cares, bur- 
dens and responsibilities both in his private 
and public life, and especially when illness 
came upon him I could see no possible way by 
which any work of that kind could be done. 

I will say here that he did not specially pur- 
sue the subject of Spiritism in the sense of 
seeking mediums and paying attention to what 
they had to say, yet he was altogether too 
open-minded and simple-hearted to scoff at it. 
Soon after my making his acquaintance he re- 
lated to me an interesting experience of his 
own which happened very soon after the death 
of his mother, who died when he was a young 
man of about twenty-one, and to whom he had 
been attached with more than the usual devo- 
tion of son to mother. A servant in the fam- 
ily, young and quite ignorant, gave indications 
of being controlled by the spirit of his mother 
within a short time after her passing out, giv- 
ing her maiden name — Verrall — a very 
uncommon name, and one which the servant 
could not possibly have known. I cannot re- 
late the incident in full, my point being that it 
made an ineradicable impression upon his mind 
and was sufficiently serious to cause him to re- 
frain from speaking lightly of such matters 
when he found any one deeply interested in 



FAILURE OF PREDICTION 61 

them, had he otherwise been inclined to do so. 

During middle life he attended the church 
of the Rev. Minot J. Savage for something 
over twenty years, rarely missed a Sunday and 
took a leading part in the management of 
church affairs. He was an admirer of Mr. 
Savage's independent thinking, and all the old 
attendants at that church know that there was 
a great deal of what might be called Spiritual- 
ism in Mr. Savage's sermons. 

He sat in his chair at City Hall for some- 
what over a year, then one day in March, 
1 90 1, he was taken ill and obliged to remain 
at his home. He was, however, continued in 
office by two mayors, Thomas N. Hart and 
Patrick A. Collins. This was one way in 
which his conspicuous service of the past, to 
both city and country, was recognized by some 
of his friends, citizens of Boston of substantial 
character, who had power and influence in the 
management of public affairs. But I wish to 
state here, in justice to him, that during al- 
most the entire length of his illness his mind 
remained clear, he was knowing to all the im- 
portant affairs of the department of which he 
had charge, and himself dictated its policy. 
It devolved upon me to travel back and forth 
frequently, almost daily, between City Hall 
and his residence in the suburbs, carrying bills 
and papers of all kinds, getting his signature to 
them and taking back his orders. I remem- 



62 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

ber one instance in particular when he dictated 
an important letter, assigning newly appointed 
subordinates to their respective places and 
duties, a letter which was remarked upon when 
I took it back to the office for the clearness 
and terseness of its expression and for the 
authority which it conveyed. 

But this was a weary summer, that of 1901. 
The suffering sick were languishing in the ex- 
treme heat, and for the well there was the dead 
monotony of life's drudgery and the heart- 
sickness which comes from hope deferred. I 
had not had access to Mrs. Piper since Novem- 
ber of the preceding year. The trance per- 
sonalities had not sent for me, and it was not 
my habit at that time to ask for sittings. All 
signs seemed to be failing, and the ground 
which I had thought solid seemed to be slipping 
again from beneath my feet. I think, how- 
ever, Dr. Hodgson made it known that I de- 
sired a sitting, and on Jan. 13, 1902, at a 
sitting of his own, the following came : 

" Also Miss Robbins' friends hath tried in 
vain to reach her. I, Rector, in particular. 
But, friend, we fail to reach through lights * 
sufficiently to give our messages clearly." 

Dr. Hodgson replied: "She thought she 
got a few words I believe from you through 
another light." 

1 " Light " is the word commonly used by the trance 
personalities for " psychic " or " medium." 



FAILURE OF PREDICTION 63 

Rector said: " Imperator sent me several 
times but I was not sure that I had reached 
her." 

This certainly implies that Imperator and 
his group do try or have tried on occasions to 
communicate through other " lights " when 
there is special need of their reaching those 
over whom they assume to have charge. 
What they do in the way of experiment is 
another matter. I had recognized on one or 
two occasions what appeared to be an attempt 
on the part of Rector to communicate with me 
through natural but undeveloped psychics. I 
felt strongly that such an attempt was being 
made. 

A sitting was arranged for me, to take place 
about a week later, on Jan. 22. From that 
time on, for the next two months, I was con- 
stantly receiving through Dr. Hodgson mes- 
sages from Imperator and Rector and sending 
messages to them. For, strange as it may 
seem, although the sick man whom all these 
messages concerned knew very little, almost 
nothing, about Imperator and his group, the 
latter apparently took a very great interest in 
him. I delivered to him a few messages which 
I thought might give him hope and comfort, 
and I think I must certainly have given him the 
impression that my own feeling, in spite of all 
misunderstandings, was that just as soon as he 
passed through and emerged from the shadow 



64 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

of death there would be for him a welcome on 
the Other Side of which he little dreamed. At 
least, that was my hope. 

But the important point here in its relation 
to psychical research is that I believed, from 
the many emphatic statements made to me by 
a group of spirits, that I was to be required in 
the future to assist in a field of work which 
they considered most important, that there 
was a particular person with whom I was to be 
associated in that work perhaps more closely 
than with any other, yet that particular person 
was dying. 

While the object I have in view compels me 
to speak freely of serious things, I trust no 
one will dream that there is aught in my 
heart but the utmost reverence for everything 
associated with that most mysterious change 
through which all human beings must pass and 
which comes to none but once. Although I 
had been bereft of certain relatives and friends, 
it had not hitherto fallen to my lot to sit often 
or long at the bedside of the sick. But to 
watch a fellow-creature who is gradually and 
surely approaching the end of life, who will 
not stay his feet for protest, tear or prayer, 
to almost see the soul as it plumes its wings for 
flight, is certainly an experience which should 
produce the greatest awe in the heart and the 
mind of the watcher. 



FAILURE OF PREDICTION 6s 

The actual date of the passing out was 
March 13, 1902. 

While General Martin was a man widely- 
known in his own city, he had little reputation 
which extended beyond this limit, except in 
connection with the War of the Rebellion, in 
which he served during its entire continuance. 
He was complimented by General Meade for 
distinguished service at the Battle of Gettys- 
burg. It was on the third and last day of this 
memorable and terrific fight that his battery, 
which had been located with immense difficulty 
on the summit of a rugged hill, had a clear 
sweep of the open field over which Pickett's 
Division of the Confederate Army made its 
famous charge, rank after rank of which were 
mowed down by the steady firing from Little 
Round Top, and the tide of battle was turned. 

The Boston Transcript said of him at the 
time of his death: "Hardly any other of 
Boston's citizens was better known, and few 
had contributed more than he of time, talent 
and activity to the military and civic service 
and functions of the city. . . . He fitted 
best into those free movements of citizens 
called into being by special occasions, and ex- 
pressive of local patriotism and public spirit. 
It was the recognition of this fitness that secur- 
ed his selection as chief marshall upon two of 
the most prominent commemorative occasions 



66 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

within the last quarter-century, and he was 
sure to be prominent in all projects for the 
development and improvement of his city." 

He was not a general in the army, nor did 
that title rightfully belong to him until the year 
1882, when Governor John D. Long, after- 
wards Secretary of the United States Navy, 
upon whose staff he was serving at the time, 
commissioned him, lawfully, Brigadier General, 
in recognition of his valuable services during 
the war. Another newspaper article which 
appeared at the time of his death says: 
" Tardy justice was thus done and he there- 
after bore a title truthfully which he had long 
borne by courtesy." 

It may be evident later that the title which 
best fits a person's character, the name by 
which he has been most intimately known and 
by which he is most endeared, clings to him 
after he has passed to the Other Side. 



VIII 
FULFILMENT 

i 903-1 907 

March 13, 1902, must be borne in mind as 
an important date in this narration. It mark- 
ed the passing of a life from this earth. A 
few days after the occurrence I saw Dr. 
Hodgson and instructed him particularly not to 
mention my name in any way at the Piper 
trance, as it is sometimes called. I felt that, 
as matters stood between myself and the trance 
personalities, there had been to say the least 
some misunderstanding and confusion, and 
that the only dignified course for me to pursue 
was to ask no favors and abide my time. I 
thought this my opportunity, too, to test the 
value once more of what had seemed to be a 
close relation between myself and personalities 
whom I knew only as a part of the Unseen. 

No word or hint came for me during the 
remainder of that season, and almost another 
whole season passed when one day, May 21, 
1903, at a sitting of Dr. Hodgson's, in one of 
those significant mutterings of Mrs. Piper's 
when coming out of trance, when she seems to 
be returning to her body, taking last glimpses 
of people in the spirit whom she designates as 

67 



68 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

" white people," while those to whom she is 
returning appear to her "black," she said: 

" General Martin says he is coming here 
pretty soon to speak — Martin — love to — 
this is a pretty dark place after all." 

Nothing more until Dec. 15 of that same 
year, when the following conversation took 
place between Rector and Dr. Hodgson while 
arrangements were being made for future 
sittings, Rector's words being quoted from the 
automatic script, Dr. Hodgson's being en- 
closed in the round brackets : — 

" There is a spirit here who calls constantly 
for a lady in the body whom he refers to 
as—" 

[Hand enquires of Spirit?] 

"Rob bins." 

(Yes. She will doubtless be rejoiced to 
come. She said long ago that she was waiting 
for anything that came.) 

" This is Imperator's arrangement for the 
spirit who spake unto Him to give him re- 
lief." 

(Yes.) 

" Imperator hath referred to it several times 
and called our attention to it but He hath not 
really commanded us until now, as He hath 
been assisting the spirit." 

" Wilt thou attend to this friend on the 
earthly side and appoint for a meeting with us 
on the third after coming? " 



FULFILMENT 69 

(Yes, I will.) 

[" Third after coming " means the third 
day after the coming Sabbath.] 

A sitting was then arranged for me, to take 
place on Dec. 23d, about twenty-one months 
after the passing out. Behold, my old friend, 
business associate and employer appears, com- 
municates as clearly and strongly as if he had 
had many previous opportunities instead of 
having had none, and at this very first oppor- 
tunity says : 

" I want to know if you don't think we 
could manage to write a book? " 

And later, on the same occasion : 

" I have had this on my mind ever since I 
came into this world and I would like to have 
it carried out." 

Still later: 

" It has got to be. It is a thing that I am 
bound to have." 

I ask: 

(You mean that you are bound I shall 
publish a book?) 

The reply came: 

" Literally, absolutely, out and out, with 
pen, paper and ink, write a book and publish 
it, and I am going to be the inspirer and insti- 
gator of it, and we are going to write that book 
together just as sure as you live." 

What! Was it then true that the line of 
work marked out four years previously was 



7 o BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

after all to be pursued, no hindrance having 
occurred in the meantime except — except — 
except — DEATH ! ! 

My sittings with Mrs. Piper continued from 
that time on, taking place, however, rarely. I 
was directed from the beginning to withhold 
some of my communications from Dr. Hodg- 
son, although I gave him the greater part of 
them. He could not himself always under- 
stand the full purpose of my relation to the 
trance personalities, or why a certain day 
should be assigned to me rather than to some 
one else who could give more substantial aid to 
the investigations that were being carried on in 
the name of science, or some one who, perhaps, 
received better communications and more mat- 
ter that was evidential in its nature than my 
own. But it is well known that he came in 
time to obey implicitly the wishes of the trance 
personalities in making arrangements for the 
different sitters, and I am told that he was 
heard to remark in his emphatic way, in re- 
gard to an appointment for me : " // they 
wish it, so it shall be." 

I do not claim any " inspiration " in any- 
thing I say or do. Nor do I disclaim it. I 
simply do not know. In the first place, I 
would not be guilty of putting upon any spirit, 
either friend or stranger, the responsibility for 
something no better than what I can do. In 
the second place , if I do anything that is 



FULFILMENT 71 

worthy, especially after long preparation and 
with much effort, I am human enough still to 
want a little credit for it, for myself. I fond- 
ly dreamed that I might become one of those 
scribes who have only to hold the pencil for 
language to flow with fluency from the tips of 
their fingers. But not so. I might sit for an 
hour at a time in silent expectation, and not 
until there was a conscious effort on my part to 
move the pencil would it show the slightest in- 
clination to stir. 

However, to say that I am not conscious of 
the cooperation of friends in the Unseen in any 
part of my work would not be strictly true. I 
am often conscious of their presence. Apart 
from the recognition within one's own spirit, 
there are at times delicate changes in or subtle 
states of the nervous system which come grad- 
ually to be recognized by the highly sensitive 
organization as sure indices of the closeness of 
other beings, though we cannot point the fin- 
ger at them or clasp them by the hand. I feel 
sure from conversations I have had with others 
that this fact lies within the experience of many 
people who will recognize the truth of what I 
say, impossible as it is to define such experience 
with sufficient precision to make it understood 
by one who has never known it. 

On December 1, 1905, the many friends of 
Dr. Richard Hodgson were astounded at see- 
ing in the morning papers the announcement of 



72 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

his sudden death, which occurred the preced- 
ing evening. It is safe to say that there was 
not a man in the city of Boston who took bet- 
ter care of his health, who derived more 
pleasure from athletic sports, who felt more 
pride in keeping his physique up to its highest 
standard. He purified his body and his life 
for his special work, and I feel that I am 
within bounds of the strictest veracity when I 
say that in and through that work higher ideals 
of living were continually being presented to 
his mind. He was not ashamed to say that he 
followed the advice of an " Imperator " or of 
some other unseen intelligence even in matters 
pertaining to physical well-being, although I 
think no one who ever saw him could say that 
he had aught but the greatest respect for his 
own good judgment which was plainly indicated 
upon his brow. 

The day of his death happened to be my op- 
portunity at Arlington Heights. I had a 
sitting in the morning and he died in the very 
early evening of the same day. No hint of 
what was to take place reached me from the 
Other Side. Mrs. Piper, who had just enter- 
ed upon her work for the season, was much 
shocked by the occurrence. I spent an hour 
at her bedside on the evening of the day after 
the death, and she related to me a most inter- 
esting dream which she had the preceding 
night. It was, in brief, as follows: 



FULFILMENT 73 

She seemed to be approaching a large dark 
tunnel. At its entrance, appearing from the 
inside, stood a man who waved his hand at 
her with a motion which seemed to say: 
" Keep back, do no enter this tunnel." She 
related her dream early the next morning to 
members of her family, remarking as she did 
so that the hand looked like Dr. Hodgson's 
hand and its peculiar motion was like his. It 
was not until after she had told her dream that 
the morning paper containing the news of the 
death was laid upon her bed. Of course I 
was ready at once with my own interpretation 
of the dream, which seemed to me a most sig- 
nificant one, namely, that Dr. Hodgson's first 
thought, on finding that he had himself 
traversed the dark passage leading from this 
world to the other, was to turn back to impress 
upon her the importance of the fact that her 
time had not yet come, that her work was not 
yet finished. 

I took down the dream at her dictation and 
afterwards secured its corroboration by her 
daughters. I handed this record in to the 
authorities, but have never seen or heard of any 
reference to the dream since that time. My 
own interpretation of it, however, certainly 
harmonizes with a message which purported to 
come for Mrs. Piper from Dr. Hodgson him- 
self later in that winter at one of my own sit- 
tings ; for, strange as it may seem, though many 



74 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

messages come through her, seldom one comes 
for her. He said : 

" Will you give my love to Mrs. Piper and 
tell her that I wish her to cling to the rigging, 
and tell her to go on unceasingly, untiringly, 
and everything will win out." 

I attended Dr. Hodgson's funeral on Dec. 
2 3> I 9°5- On Jan. i, 1906, eight days later, 
when passing out of my house in the morning 
and glancing at the accustomed place for my 
mail, what was my astonishment at seeing an 
envelope addressed to myself in the familiar 
and peculiar handwriting of Dr. Hodgson. It 
startled even me a little, to whom life and 
death have become the same. The envelope 
contained his Christmas card. He had for 
some years been in the habit of sending to his 
friends, at Christmas, cards with a few lines or 
a stanza of poetry printed thereon, an accom- 
paniment to his good wishes for the season. I 
learned later that the envelopes were found all 
addressed, ready for the Christmas mail, and 
about ten days after his death his executors had 
them mailed. This particular selection, lines 
from Tennyson, was so appropriate to the oc- 
casion and the circumstances that I will insert 
it here : 

Let be thy wail, and help thy fellow-men, 
And make thy gold thy vassal, not thy king, 
And fling free alms into the beggar's bowl, 
And send the day into the darken'd heart: 



FULFILMENT 75 

Nor list for guerdon in the voice of men, 
A dying echo from a falling wall; 

And lay thine uphill shoulder to the wheel, 
And climb the Mount of Blessing, whence, if 

thou 
Look higher, then — perchance — thou mayest 

— beyond 
A hundred ever-rising mountain lines, 
And past the range of Night and Shadow — see 
The high-heaven dawn of more than mortal day 
Strike on the Mount of Vision! 

Surely a call to duty if ever there were one, 
a clarion call from the Mount of Vision itself, 
which he had already climbed. 

Dr. Hodgson occupied an unique position in 
Boston in relation to other people who were 
interested in psychical research, and especially 
to those who had access to Mrs. Piper. He 
was the centre of a group. He was the centre 
of a circle. Each member of the circle placed 
in him the utmost confidence, a trust he was 
never known to betray Yet, while his ac- 
quaintance extended to all, there was not a gen- 
eral acquaintance among the members of the 
group. They formed a sort of chain to which 
his relation was the connecting link. But 
when he fell, a half-dozen or more sitters im- 
mediately joined hands to see to it that the 
chain should not entirely fall apart; to see that 
all papers and reports confidentially placed in 



76 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

his keeping should be properly safeguarded; 
and, perhaps more important than all else, to 
see that the " Light," so called, should be care- 
fully watched and that opportunities for 
further experiment should if possible be offer- 
ed, now that he was on the Other Side instead 
of on this. 

I discovered then that there were at least 
a few people who, while recognizing fully the 
scientific importance of this work, had at the 
same time received from the Other Side of the 
Veil a spiritual uplifting which meant almost 
their salvation. 

To return to my sitting of Dec. 20 of this 
same year (1905), a date which marks an 
epoch in the annals of psychical research in this 
country. While conversing with my communi- 
cator I remarked that I would like to tell the 
gentleman at the head of the state department 
in which I was employed something about my 
private work. I thought it was due him to be 
told something about the nature of the outside 
matters which occasionally took me away from 
my post, that it was no more than courtesy on 
my part to inform him. Moreover, I took 
him to be a man who would not allow himself 
to be prejudiced against the subject, whether 
familiar with it or not, and who might even 
take an interest it it. The reply was : 

" It would be a little unwise at the present 
time, ... it might weaken his respect 



FULFILMENT 77 

for you along the intellectual lines, . . . 
but there is a time for everything, and the 
truth will bear its weight and it will work its 
way through all the dark clouds and win its 
way into the light, and leave this to time, and 
the time will present itself when you can speak 
openly on the question and not be considered in- 
ferior intellectually, and that is what I do not 
wish. I am determined that you shall be re- 
spected." 

These remarks, unimportant though they 
may seem, turned out very shortly to be truly 
prophetic in their nature. Dr. Hodgson died 
on the evening of that very day. I did not 
know of the death until some time the follow- 
ing day. At the very first sitting which took 
place after the death, given to a gentleman who 
had been a close friend of Dr. Hodgson's 
and familiar with his work for years, the 
trance personalities mentioned the names of 
various persons who, in the emergency which 
had arisen, could be of service in what they 
call " their work," and my name was one of 
the number. My assistance, however, was not 
actually requested by those in charge on this 
side until about two months later. 

It must be remembered by the uninitiated 
that the more highly developed the psychic and 
the deeper the trance into which she passes, the 
more delicate, apparently, are the conditions 
pertaining to that state, and the greater the 



78 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

watchfulness required on the part of the sitter. 
And in this particular case the spirit controls 
are somewhat autocratic. They will have this 
and they will not have that. They will allow 
this person and they will not allow that person. 
It is wholly against their wishes, for reasons 
probably still best known to themselves, that 
strangers should be introduced without their 
express consent. And sometimes they say in 
as many words that if their wishes in certain 
matters are not complied with they will " re- 
fuse to come," which evidently means that Mrs. 
Piper would not be able to go into the trance 
state at her pleasure and there would be no 
sitting. The control of affairs is practically 
from the Other Side, however much we may 
like to ignore the fact. 

About this time, two months after the death, 
some one in authority on this side, on his own 
initiative, consulted with the governor of the 
commonwealth and the chief of the department 
where I was engaged — by name Dr. Austin 
Peters — and I was briefly informed that I 
might absent myself on occasional days for the 
special purpose of assisting in the Piper work, 
provided that my absence was " not detrimen- 
tal to the public service," and provided, also, 
that time thus taken should be charged against 
the vacation days of the year which were due 
me. I found that Dr. Peters, while unfamiliar 
with psychial research as such, recognized the 



FULFILMENT 79 

importance of any work done in the name of 
science. During the remainder of the season, 
therefore, I was present at many of the sittings 
and assisted in keeping the records. 

The subject having been brought to my at- 
tention in the manner explained, instead of my 
being obliged to bring it to the attention of 
others, and my pathway thus made easy, was 
all the fulfilment that I desired of the pro- 
phetic words uttered through the trance two 
months previously. 

It appears, then, that respect for psychical 
research still depends somewhat — at least in 
an opinion expressed from the Other Side — 
upon whether the work be initiated and back- 
ed by some one high in social standing or offi- 
cial life, or whether it be pursued by some one 
lower down in the scale of position. But let 
us be thankful that search in this interesting 
and important field has at last become respect- 
able, no matter by whom it has been made so. 

During the winter of 1906-7 Mrs. Piper 
was in England giving sittings under the 
auspices of the English S. P. R. at its rooms 
in London. [See Proc. Part LVII, Vol. 
XXII, October, 1908.] The winter of 
1907-8 she spent in Boston. I was called 
early in the season for a sitting. My com- 
municator appears, tells me that " delays are 
dangerous," and that he wishes me to lose no 
time in the gathering together of my scattered 
papers in preparation for publication. 



IX 

FAITH 

I do not like the word 
monly used, and I have tried to extirpate it 
from my vocabulary; not, however, with per- 
fect success. When a person puts the direct 
question to me, " Do you believe such and such 
a thing," and expects me to answer yes or no, 
I feel that by answering " yes " I am com- 
mitting myself to a state of mind so positive 
that it shuts out further light on the point in 
question. Many times I have answered: " I 
neither believe nor disbelieve; I think it 
is so, but do not know." For that is 
what the word means, an acceptance of an 
opinion or a fact without personal knowl- 
edge of its truth. The word is associated 
in my mind with an ignorant assent, and 
after throwing away dogmatic belief in 
early years I have tried to keep my mind 
open for whatever of new there might come 
into it, and not make hasty judgments. I want 
to know things. Some things I do know and 
can prove their truth to others. Many other 
things are for me practically true, though I 
can not prove their truth to others. They 
appear to me to be true, and the appearance is 
so strong that it practically amounts to a belief, 
80 



FAITH 8 1 

so that I can hardly dispense with the word 
after all. But to believe a thing without any 
knowledge at all, either the knowledge that 
comes from a clear inner light or an outward 
experience, is something that is contrary to my 
nature, and when I am expected to answer yes 
or no to a direct question about belief, I want 
to have some idea of what the person who puts 
the question means by the word. 

The expression " inner light " has no mean- 
ing for many people, but for some it has a very 
great significance. Inner light sometimes 
makes a truth so clear, to the person possessing 
the light, that it is impossible for him not to 
believe it even before outward experience has 
confirmed it, and though all the world may for 
the moment say " you are wrong." 

During the larger portion of the first busy 
decade of which I have spoken, after swing- 
ing onto a ground of no definite religious belief 
of any kind, I, too, was privileged to sit under 
the liberalizing, optimistic and truly spiritual 
teaching of the Rev. Minot J. Savage, then 
occupying a pulpit in Boston. The seeming 
deadness to me of everything outside of the 
senses was gradually lessening, and a new kind 
of faith in a future life was budding; not one 
which had been handed down to me from my 
ancestors, but one which was destined in time 
to become more real, and my experiences in 
Spiritism, so called, probably helped on con- 



82 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

siderably the growth of this new faith. I 
would not give the impression that from the 
very beginning I actually believed in all that 
purported to come from the spirit world, but 
with long continued experience, and a fidelity 
on the part of friends on the Other Side which 
seems never to fail, conviction grows, it fastens 
itself upon one and cannot be shaken off. 

Belief in a future life is, as William James 
puts it, " largely a matter of personal feeling." 
It is, I think, a matter of individual apprehen- 
sion and appropriation, based partly upon ex- 
perience in what purports to be communion of 
some sort with the so-called dead, and partly 
upon an indefinable quality of the soul which is 
able to appropriate from the Vastness outside 
of itself, a quality variable in its potency in 
different individuals and which one person can- 
not impart to another. I might offer page 
after page of communications, yet they would 
never mean to one who sees them only in the 
cold type what they mean to me. Personal 
experience of this kind, therefore, may be a 
very large factor in the gradual growth of be- 
lief, yet not the only factor and perhaps not 
the most important. The layman who is eager 
and thirsting for the truth cannot wait for 
the dictum of Science, and if to him truth is 
revealed in some surer and quicker way than 
by the slow process of scientific experimenta- 
tion, no one may easily rob him of the personal 



FAITH 83 

satisfaction which he derives from such revela- 
tion. 

As one after another of my friends have 
gone to the spirit world they have in turn 
become such a vital part of my every-day con- 
sciousness that I think about them and speak 
of them as if they were still actually in my 
circle of acquaintance and only temporarily out 
of my sight. I believe that I do converse 
with them, perhaps not in the " fullness of 
their personality," or the " same fullness of 
clear consciousness that they exhibited during 
life," but that I do converse with them; that 
there is, not always, but on many occasions, 
a clear and distinct understanding between me 
and my communicator, and a sense of grati- 
fication on my part as of having met and ex- 
changed greetings with some dear old friend. 
I do not think, however, that if I had not had 
opportunity with some of the most gifted and 
highly developed psychics I should ever have 
become possessed of so strong a sense of re- 
ality and gratification. This I say with the 
greatest respect for those who possess the 
psychic gift in a lesser degree. 

It was not until the passing of the friend 
who went last to the spirit world that I seemed 
somehow to come into the blessedness of think- 
ing mostly about life and excluding death al- 
together from my thoughts, of feeling life in 
the air which I breathe, the sky which I look 



84 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

at, the sun which shines upon me, and the 
darkness which shrouds and rests me; in fact, 
life and intelligence everywhere. And the 
wonderful thing about thus " coming into uni- 
versal consciousness," as it is called, is that 
it takes away morbid over-anxiety to under- 
stand the whole scheme of creation or nothing, 
it brings back the natural charm of things 
which we felt in our childhood, it puts a new 
meaning into our common every-day life, and 
makes it worth while to endeavor to make of 
it a " thing of beauty," a " thing of power." 

I do not wish to be understood as uttering 
any final word on the subject of prophecy, or 
as really offering any explanation at all. That 
must be left to the psychologist and the sci- 
entist. Nor do I wish any one to place any 
reliance whatever on predictions made by 
psychics from anything I may say. However 
important the subject of prophecy may be, the 
predictions themselves form a small part of 
the mass and the worth of the communications 
that come through Mrs. Piper. But I offer 
my personal experience, and if read aright I 
think it will show that the counsel given by 
Imperator and his group, as it affects an indi- 
vidual life and the spiritual significance of in- 
dividual life-work, is far-seeing and wise, 
piercing not merely through a few years, but 
even through death itself. 

In 1 90 1, four years before the death of Dr. 



FAITH 85 

Richard Hodgson, I communicated with him 
asking if he would kindly give me some in- 
formation on the matter of the failure or the 
fulfilment of prophecy as it had come under 
his observation. He replied promptly and at 
length. At the close of the letter in which 
he discussed it fully for my benefit, he gave ex- 
pression to his own belief in the reality of the 
trance personalities in language so emphatic 
and so beautiful that I cannot refrain from 
quoting it here. After his death copies of 
this letter were circulated among some of his 
most intimate friends, none of whom had seen 
anything quite like it written by him, and this 
particular passage, or rather the latter part 
of it, came to be known among these friends 
as his " confession of faith." * 

The passage in question has not been in 
every instance quite accurately quoted, possibly 
owing to my own misinterpretation of it orig- 
inally, and then to its getting into print with- 
out my having opportunity to correct it. I 

1 This has already been published, with my permission, 
privately at first, being included in a paper read at the 
annual meeting of the Tavern Club of Boston on May 
6, 1006, by M. A. DeWolfe Howe, and later copied. 

Those who are interested are referred to a memorial 
of Richard Hodgson by Dr. James H. Hyslop, Journal of 
the American Society for Psychical Research, Vol. I, 
January, 1907; and to memorials by Mrs. Henry Sidg- 
wick and J. G. Piddington, in Proceedings of the English 
Society for Psychical Research, Part LII, Vol. XIX, 
February, 1907, in which the paper by Mr. Howe, above 
mentioned, is also included. 



86 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

am therefore tempted to give it here in Dr. 
Hodgson's own peculiar chirography, which 
will be recognized by his many friends to 
whom his handwriting is familiar. 

TRANSCRIPTION 

November 24, 1901. 
Dear Miss Robbins: I should have replied to 
yours of 17 earlier, but could not find any copy of 
the notes which I now enclose in T sheets. 

******* 

But apart from all this we must remember that 
nothing can be regarded as infallible, and I tried to 
put my general view about this in the notes a copy 
of which I enclose. About what Imperator and his 
group are in their world I have no doubt. They 
have done for me and for some others also, — more 
than everything, but the final written or spoken re- 
sults through Mrs. P.'s inadequate organism sur- 
rounded by our^earthly make-ups generally can only 
afford us faint glimpses of the great holies from 
which they take their origin. We cannot pray too 
much to do and suffer the will of God, whatever it 
be. I went through toils and turmoils and perplexi- 
ties in '97 and '98 about the significance of this whole 
Imperator regime, but I have seemed to get on a 
rock after that, — I seem to understand clearly the 
reasons for incoherence and obscurity, etc., and I think 
that if for the rest of my life from now I should 
never see another trance or have another word from 
Imperator or his group, — it would make no differ- 
ence to my knowledge that all is well, that Impera- 








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FAITH 87 

tor, etc., are all they claim to be and are indeed mes- 
sengers that we may call divine. Be of good courage 
whatever happens, and pray continually, and let peace 
come into your soul. Why should you be distraught 
and worried? Everything, absolutely everything, — 
from a spot of ink to all the stars, every faintest 
thought we think up to the contemplations of the 
highest intelligences in the cosmos, are all in and 
part of the infinite Goodness. Rest in that Divine 
Love. All your trials are known better than you 
know them yourself. Do you think it is an idle 
word that the hairs of our heads are numbered? 
Have no dismay, fear nothing and trust in God. 
Yours sincerely, 

R. Hodgson. 

I give also extracts from a second letter in 
reply to my acknowledgment of the above. 

TRANSCRIPTION 

Boston, Mass., December 1, 1901. 

Dear Miss Robbins: Just a word or two in 
reply to your kind letter of November 27. Thanks 
for T document returned. 

Of course we get misrepresented and misunder- 
stood in all sorts of ways. In the old years when 
I was prominent in exposing fraudulent mediums, 
Spiritualists generally used to revile me as a gross 
materialistic skeptic who had no other object but the 
persistent determination to disprove Spiritualism. 
Nothing could have been further from the truth even 



88 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

then. And now, as you rightly say, in recent years, 
with the Imperator regime, another influence has 
come which I trust, even to the end and after, — 
with all my darkness and weakness and blunderings 
and brutenesses, — I shall not escape, which I trust 
will abide with me ever, for it is law and love and 
peace and freedom and joy and God. 
Yours ever, 

Richard Hodgson. 

These letters speak for themselves and need 
no comment from me. 

Let me say once more that I have been re- 
peatedly and continually urged by those on 
the Other Side of the Veil, since 1900, and 
more especially since 1902, to offer to others 
something of my experience and something of 
the comfort which I myself have received. 



And the End is Not Yet. September, igog. 



AMERICAN BRANCH 

Society for gstjtftical f^xsearch. 



RICHARD HODGSON, 



3 Treasurer, 

,5 BOYLSTON PLACE 



RICHARD HOI 

Boston, Mass.: ££eo / 



.•..</ 



V-^ 



/^5 











PART II 



COMMUNICATIONS FROM THE 

OTHER SIDE OF THE VEIL 

THROUGH MRS. PIPER 



X 

PREFATORY EXPLANATIONS 

Up to the beginning of 1906 I never 
dreamed that I should arrive at the point of 
publishing reports of my own sittings with 
Mrs. Piper. The reports were not mine to 
publish, as they were all in the hands of Dr. 
Hodgson and he held them by right of his 
office as Secretary of the Society for Psychical 
Research. For some years previous to his 
death the condition on which most or all of 
the sittings were allowed was that a report 
of some kind should be made to him, every 
sitter, of course, retaining the right to with- 
hold whatever was considered of too intimate 
and personal a character to disclose. He 
himself accompanied many of the sitters and 
made his own records. It was my habit to 
make very full reports. On my proposing on 
one occasion to omit some talk about my 
health, which I did not presume was of in- 
terest to any one but myself, he insisted that 
I should give him every word that I possibly 
could, saying that he had been working for 
years to obtain verbatim reports of these sit- 
tings, and that, of the few people whose com- 
munications came by voice, I happened to be 
the only one who was accustomed to the more 
91 



92 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

rapid reporting. Therefore I gave him much 
that I would not think of allowing to be pub- 
lished, on the understanding between us that 
before he made any use of these records by 
way of publications of his own there would 
be opportunity for the reconsideration and 
the withholding of certain portions. I gave 
him these full records for the purpose of en- 
abling him as a psychologist to form a better 
judgment of the value of a sitting as a whole. 

He also expressed to me his opinion that 
in the publication of records it is better to 
make use of real names as far as possible 
rather than pseudonyms, although he recog- 
nized that there are many considerations en- 
tering into the question, and that this cannot 
always or perhaps often be done. 

The sudden death of Dr. Hodgson altered 
entirely the situation of affairs. In May, 
1906, the authorities, in issuing an announce- 
ment of the proposed dissolution of the Ameri- 
can Branch of the S. P. R., made the following 
statement : 

" The Piper records, and all documents 
appertaining thereto, will remain in charge of 
the Council of the Society; and, as promptly 
as the labor involved in the study of their vo- 
luminous and complicated contents will allow, 
a full report on the later developments of 
the Piper case up to the date of Dr. Hodgson's 
death will be issued in the Proceedings. 



PREFATORY EXPLANATIONS 93 

" After publication the Council of the So- 
ciety will allow qualified and serious students 
access to the records ; but only on terms which 
will ensure that all private and intimate matter 
contained in them shall be handled with proper 
discretion and reserve, and that all confidences 
shall be respected." 

My own reports were included, with my 
consent, in the mass of documents which were 
transferred to London. As I am not now 
publishing complete records, I make this ex- 
planation to show that I have made some 
slight contribution to the files of the English 
S. P. R., and it is possible that the person who 
summarizes the contents of all the documents, 
or the " serious student " who examines them, 
may find in my small portion some good tests 
or some few points of psychological interest 
which I have not thought best to reproduce 
in this volume, my special object being to offer 
the running conversation rather than the test 
with its detailed explanation and corrobora- 
tion. 

The reports of my sittings are, therefore, 
the property of the S. P. R., and I have no 
right to publish without the permission of that 
society. On November 7, 1907, the Council 
of that body voted to give me permission to 
publish extracts from my own reports on the 
understanding that I should publish also an 
acknowledgment of the permission, together 



94 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

with the statement that the Council is in no 
way responsible for anything I may say, and 
I hereby absolve the Council of the Society 
for Psychical Research from responsibility for 
any and every word which I publish. 

At an earlier date, September 26, 1906, I 
received what purported to be a communica- 
tion from Richard Hodgson himself, as fol- 
lows : 

" If you wish to extract anything from those 
reports you have my consent to do so and I 
hope the consent of the Council." 

When scientists first undertook the study of 
mediumistic phenomena the particular test was 
considered the all-important thing, and com- 
paratively little attention was paid to anything 
else. More recently, voluminous and charac- 
teristic talk on the part of a communicator 
has been considered valuable and even eviden- 
tial in its way. Professor James H. Hyslop 
in his work entitled " Science and a Future 
Life " [p. 269] says: " What we must have 
is psychological phenomena, and psychological 
phenomena of that kind which represents the 
systematic mental action natural to the person 
whose existence is in question." 

Still more recently, even descriptions of life 
on the Other Side of the Veil, which of course 
cannot stand at all as positive proof of the 
truth of the matter, are being sought after, 
and I have been told by a leading psychologist 



PREFATORY EXPLANATIONS 95 

that when we have a mass of non-evidential 
matter it will sometime have a bearing on the 
value of what is strictly evidential. 

I am not offering my communications as 
" evidence " in the strict sense of that word. 
I am offering them simply for what they are, 
expecting that each reader of the first portion 
of this volume will peruse or omit this portion 
as he sees fit, and that each one will judge of 
it for himself. I realize that when I lock my- 
self into an " upper chamber " with one other 
person only and that person goes into a state 
of unconsciousness and talks, what I bring out 
as a record of that talk must depend much 
for its value upon whatever reputation I my- 
self may have for being a truthful recorder, 
if I am so fortunate as to have any. 

It should be understood that in the latter 
years nearly all the communications coming 
through Mrs. Piper are in automatic writing. 
It is only at an occasional sitting or only for 
certain sitters that the communications are 
given through the voice. Many prefer the 
automatic writing, and for the purpose of 
scientific experimentation it is considered, I un- 
derstand, more valuable. The writing that 
is produced can be preserved as the actual com- 
munication and cannot be disputed. How- 
ever, the writing itself is not by any means 
the whole story, and in order that it be per- 
fectly intelligible all questions and remarks 



96 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

interjected by the sitter must also be accurately 
recorded. Nor is this all. The story is not 
then complete unless one knows how to make 
notes of and interpret more or less correctly 
the various and significant gestures of the 
hand, which appears to be sensitive and alive, 
as if an actual intelligence were seated in it. 
Therefore I cannot see why, either at a voice 
sitting or at a writing sitting, much has not 
to be trusted to the person who does the re- 
cording, although still more perhaps must be 
trusted to the person who does the interpret- 
ing, in cases where recorder and interpreter 
do not happen to be one. 

I have a great mass of communications ex- 
tending through the years, and can only pub- 
lish extracts from them. I have decided that 
it is best to confine these extracts almost en- 
tirely to communications from one personality, 
giving continuous talk, which in a voice sitting 
has much fewer breaks than occur in the writ- 
ing. 

There is not in my case, as exists in many 
cases, any special reason why I should with- 
hold the identity of the one who has been my 
special communicator of recent years, namely, 
Augustus Pearl Martin. In fact, it is for the 
very reason that he was widely known in both 
public and private life in the city of Boston 
that I am speaking openly and freely, and 



PREFATORY EXPLANATIONS 97 

offering communications which purport to have 
come from him since his passing out in 1902. 
I am also desirous of making my offering with- 
out further delay, and before his strong per- 
sonality shall have become dim in the memory 
of his large acquaintance. I am hoping 
thereby to interest people in my subject who 
as yet know little about it, or who have hith- 
erto taken no special interest in it. 

I do not consider that I have any right to 
publish this name, however, against the wishes 
or without the express consent of the nearest 
surviving relatives. This consent I have ob- 
tained, as will appear in the following copy of 
a letter written by the widow and endorsed by 
the son. 

769 Morton St., Dorchester, Mass., 

May 10, 1908. 
My Dear Miss Robbins: I have no objection 
to your publishing the name of my late husband in 
connection with your work with Mrs. Piper, if you 
choose to do so. I appreciate the great assistance 
you rendered him during the last years of his life, 
and can assure you that his friendly feeling for you 
was shared not only by myself but by all the mem- 
bers of my family. I have known of your long-con- 
tinued interest in psychical research, and if he were 
here to-day I am sure he would trust your judg- 
ment in any matter of this kind. I would prefer 
not to have details concerning myself or my family 



98 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

published, but otherwise you are at liberty to use the 
name as you see fit. 

Yours sincerely, 

Abbie F. Martin. 
I most heartily endorse the above. 

Everett F. Martin. 

There have been anxious inquiries and lov- 
ing messages for members of his own family, 
but most of these I must omit. Many refer- 
ences to other persons also, friends and rela- 
tives of my own, must be omitted. 

Where there is a decided change in the 
subject of the running talk, if it is something 
that must be omitted I have indicated the 
omission by dotted lines. Omissions of single 
words or brief phrases, which do not in the least 
affect the sense, some of which are made 
merely to avoid repetition, I have not indicated 
and must ask the reader to place confidence 
in the discretion I have tried to exercise on 
these points. Some personal references must 
be omitted in any case, and one object for 
adopting the method of abbreviating here indi- 
cated is to make the record more readable. 
The technical report of the automatic writing, 
with all its confusions, breaks and undecipher- 
able scrawls, is fascinating reading for the 
student, but is often, by reason of its unin- 
telligible technicality, unattractive to the aver- 
age reader. 



PREFATORY EXPLANATIONS 99 

Further than this it is only necessary for 
the uninitiated to remember that all remarks 
enclosed in round brackets are my own. All 
remarks enclosed in square brackets are not 
a part of the sitting but simply my explanatory 
notes. All of the remainder of the record 
represents what is said by the communicating 
spirit. 

It hardly seems necessary for me to make 
the statement here and at this late day that 
the possibility of Mrs. Piper's seeking infor- 
mation in a normal way to give out in her 
trance was years ago entirely dropped from' 
the consideration of her case by those familiar 
with it. She of course must be more or less 
familiar with the names of men who have been 
in the public eye. She had only the very 
slightest personal acquaintance with my com- 
municator when he was living, never having 
met him more than once or twice and then 
only casually. She has never seen one of my 
reports, nor had she any idea up to within a few 
months of date of publication that I intended 
to publish, at which time I obtained her full 
consent to publishing whatever relates to her 
in this volume. 



XI 

EXTRACTS FROM REPORTS OF 
SITTINGS 

SITTING OF DECEMBER 23, I903 

Rector controlling 

Art thou here? Art thou present? 

'(I am.) 

In God's holy name we greet thee this day 
and this hour. We sent for thee to return 
to us that we might make all clear to thee, 
bring messages from those who seek thee on 
our side and teach thee the divine and holy 
will of God. Hearest thou me? 

(I do. I am glad I have not been dropped 
from the fold.) 

Dropped, friend? Not one lamb who 
cometh unto us, who seeketh us in the highest, 
who have faith in God, will depart from us 
or will we allow them to drift from the fold 
unprotected or unguided. Thy friends on 
this side hath sought thee often. 

(Friend?) 

Friends. They have sought thee, they have 
called us to seek thee, to find thee out, to bring 
thee unto us and unto them. Hearest thou 
me? 

(Yes.) 

100 



REPORTS OF SITTINGS 101 

Friend, oh those of little faith know not 
the workings of the Allwise. ... I am 
Rector, servant of God. I bring to thee first 
thy friend known as Hiram. 

[My old friend of early sittings, who 
passed away in 1885, known in old reports as 
" H." There was some talk here which I 
understood to be by Hiram Hart, but, while 
in the earlier years he talked very naturally, 
his style being very unlike that of Rector, at 
this time the two personalities were so much 
alike that I could not clearly distinguish when 
one left off speaking and the other began. It 
appeared later, however, that Rector brought 
Hiram Hart, and the latter came to introduce 
the friend who had never before made his ap- 
pearance. For he said:] 

I am bringing another friend who seeks you, 
who knows you as you are. He would speak 
also, but the awakening of his soul was the 
most remarkable I have ever known. I sought 
him and found him. He sought me. We 
found each other. We are together. We 
clasp hands, we are friends. 

(Yes.) 

They call him on our side " General." 

(I see.) 

I know not his other name so well, but he 
is known by this and we call him this, and he 
is happy but longs to meet you. Do you 
hear? 



102 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 
(Yes.) 

Now here comes the General. Will you 
speak to him? 

(Oh, I should be delighted.) 

[What immediately follows I understood 
to be the first words that came from the later 
acquaintance, who passed out about twenty-one 
months previous to date of this sitting.] 

The General 

I want to see you. I want everything to 
be understood between us, and until it is I do 
not feel satisfied. Can't you help me? Can't 
you see the obstacles in my way? 

[A few brief phrases only omitted here.] 

Can't you see that God's will was better? 
Oh, you are not so weak as I thought in your 
belief. Why didn't I know better? Well, 
because I was grappling with the world. That 
is it. 

(Is this Hiram talking, or is he talking for 
the General?) 

No, he is talking for the General. He is 
quoting the General's words. You remember 
the little poem, 

Tell me, ye winged winds 

That round my pathway roar, 
Do ye not know some spot — 

[Words not all correctly caught here, but 



REPORTS OF SITTINGS 103 

these are the first lines of the verse he was try- 
ing to quote.] 

You remember that? 

(Yes.) 

You remember, 

Some lone and pleasant dell, 
Some valley in the West, 

Where free from toil and pain, 
The weary soul may rest? 

(General, you used to repeat a lot of po- 
etry, didn't you?) 

Oh, I forgot, — yes, I did. I have found 
that peace, that rest, the beautiful awakening 
of the spirit. 

I have longed for a talk with you, but I did 
not understand the conditions. 

(Yes, I have been only waiting patiently 
for you to come.) 

You have called for me in your spirit. I 
knew it and felt it, but I could not reach down 
until the conditions were arranged for it. Do 
you know what they all mean? Perhaps you 
know better than I do. But these good 
priests [who] opened the way, who showed 
me the Light, opened the door for me and here 
I am. Would to God you could see me as 
I am! I am quite the man that I was, only 
my ideas are all changed. They are more 
now I think in harmony with your own. 



104 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

Oh, it is beautiful, it is ideal, just over the 
river, lift the Veil and you know all. Tell 
me something of yourself. 

But oh, why was I so blind? It was be- 
cause of the thickness, the thickness of the 
flesh. 

(General, do you know what I am doing?) 

Yes, I know it well. Do you mean the na- 
ture of the work, or the private work? 

(I mean this minute.) 

This present minute? 

(Yes.) 

Why, aren't you registering something? 

(Yes.) 

I can see your hand move and I can see 
your spirit, too, so plainly, and the spiritual 
hand guides the material hand, and it seems 
as though it was registering something. Is 
it what I am saying? 

(Yes.) 

Well, that is natural. 

(Well, I guess so.) 

That is natural, and how rapidly you 
worked with that for me. I shall never for- 
get those days. 

[This of course refers to the eight years 
of association in public office, and especially 
to the first five, when I reported hearings, con- 
ferences, etc., at which he presided, and also 
wrote much at his dictation.] 



REPORTS OF SITTINGS 105 

And do you remember the last time I saw 
you in the body? 

(Yes.) 

You remember what you said to me? Do 
you remember saying " I think you are get- 
ting better? " 

(I think I said that, that time.) 

[I said this many times to him during his 
illness, and probably said it the last time I 
saw him.] 

Yes, you did. You were so hopeful and 
you helped me so much, but I could not tell 
you all I felt. Do you hear ? 

(Yes.) 

[It was generally understood among those 
who were near him that my hope for his re- 
covery was stronger than that of any one else, 
though no one else knew the ground for my 
hope. Strong prophetic statements had been 
made to me, regarding future work, etc., which 
involved his life, and which, it seemed to me 
then, could not possibly reach their fulfilment 
if he died.] 

Can't you speak to me and tell me some- 
thing of yourself? 

(I will speak slowly so that I can register 
it.) 

[" Register " is a term used from the Other 
Side, which I adopted.] 

All right. Do you remember coming to me 



106 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

and telling me about your belief, and do you 
remember I said I would like to accept it, but 
I did not know, I did not understand? 

(I knew that was the way you felt.) 

But I felt that all through. I could not 
understand it. I do now. What fools we 
are ! But those few who seek light and light 
is given them are blest, aren't they ? 

(General, do you remember the very last 
words that you said to me?) 

The last words that I said were — I think 
I said — didn't I say I should see you again 
and ask you to come out? 

[" To come out " is exactly the right ex- 
pression. His home was in the suburbs of 
Boston, about six miles from the centre.] 

(Well, you expected me out the next day.) 

Oh, I said good bye to you. I said " good 
bye, come to-morrow," " I shall see you to- 
morrow," or something — I can't remember 
the exact words, but that is the idea. What 
were they? 

(The very last words that you said were 
" good night." You said that just as [nat- 
urally] as though you were perfectly well.) 

Yes, I remember saying good bye to you. 
I remember thinking, looking forward to see 
you again. Then what was the next thing? 
Then I passed over — 

(Yes.) 

— between that time and the time you — 



REPORTS OF SITTINGS 107 

did not come again. Tell me a little about that. 
That may help me to come. 

(Do you remember you used to sit in a 
chair?) 

Oh, yes. I remember one thing, I remem- 
ber sitting with a blanket over my knees, over 
my body. 

[He sat that way nearly all the time day 
and night for a year, not being able to lie 
down during the greater part of his illness, 
and he was rarely without a blanket over his 
knees, even in the warmest weather.] 

[There is a little further talk here about 
the conditions of his illness.] 

(General, do you remember — ) 

How far away are you now from here? 
You seem quite a little distance away. 

[I had not been quite close to the psychic. 
I moved a little nearer and put my hand on 
her shoulder.] 

(My hand is on the medium's shoulder.) 

I suppose it is because the flesh divides us. 

(Do you remember that I used to bring 
messages through this same channel?) 

Oh, I remember there was a friend of yours, 
a lady in the body — now who was she? I 
can't think what her name was, but she lived 
somewhere in some other town, and you used 
to go and see her and then come and bring 
me messages from the priests who are helping 
me now. But I can't remember who she was, 



108 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

but I remember the messages perfectly, the 
nature of the messages, and they really helped 
me. They gave me great encouragement, and 
that is all I needed, was encouragement, until 
time helped me over. 

[Arlington Heights, where Mrs. Piper then 
lived, is about eight miles from Boston centre 
in an opposite direction from where his home 
was.] 

What was you going to say about the mes- 
sages? Oh I wish you knew how I felt, how 
light I am, how I can see, how I can read and 
how I can move about, how free I am from 
encumbrance, how clear my mind is, how 
really supremely happy I am. You would be 
delighted for my sake. 

(I never wanted to call you back.) 

Good! You knew too well how I suffered. 
But tell me about the children. I would like 
to know a little something about the children. 

[There is quite a little conversation here 
about members of his own family about whom 
he seemed eager to hear, and he asked if I 
had been out to his home since he passed 
away.] 

[About six months after the General died 
a grandson about two years of age, who was 
named for him, passed away. Another grand- 
son was born on Dec. 16, 1903, just a week 
previous to date of the present sitting. I 
knew only of the fact, did not know what the 



REPORTS OF SITTINGS 109 

child was named, or whether it was named 
at all. But in giving him information about 
the family into which this child was born, I 
say, referring to the father of the child:] 

(And he has got a new baby. Did you 
know that?) 

Yes, the little one I knew about. . . . 
It is just the little details of the material life 
which I cannot grasp and [in] which I long 
to have you help me, but the actual life, and 
the actual life of the children, and all that, 
is well known to me, but the details of the 
material life I cannot see. 

(Do you remember little Augustus?) 

Oh, yes. Tell me about him. 

(Do you know where he is?) 

Well, I know about the little one that came 
over. I know him. He is with me and we 
are very happy together. But didn't he name 
the other — 

(I don't know what he has named him 
yet.) 

Hasn't he called him Augustus? He has, 
I am sure, one of the two names. But his 
first one is with me. 

(Now I don't know whether he has named 
him Augustus or not — ) 

Well, he has. 

( — so that will be a good test for me.) 

That is one of his names. 

(I will find out about it.) 



no BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

And sometime you can speak with me about 
it, but meanwhile I know it is true. But the 
little fellow followed me very soon, didn't 
he? 

(Yes.) 

I knew, and I was so glad to have him come, 
and he is better off here, much better off. In 
fact, it is all right. I have no words of com- 
plaint to offer. 

[I ascertained afterwards that the new baby 
was named William Everett, but his mother 
told me that they called him Augustus nearly 
all the time. He seemed to take the place of 
the little Augustus whom they lost.] 

Are you getting along all right in the world ? 

[I do not reply immediately.] 

(You know I want to take this all down, 
and that is why I am a little slow.) 

Oh, I see. Well, don't hurry. There is 
no hurry in this world. I see a light burn- 
ing, and at the end of that light I am talking, 
and when the light begins to go out, of course 
I must go. That is, I can't talk with you, 
but I shall be with you just the same and you 
will be conscious of it. Are you getting along 
as well as when I was with you? 

(Oh, about as well.) 

Do you have to work hard? 

(Well, I have to work every day.) 

But not any harder? 



REPORTS OF SITTINGS in 

(No.) 

I am glad. I would like to see you a little 
free for a few hours in what we used to call 
day, and have a little leisure for rest and read- 
ing up on subjects concerning the advance- 
ments of a higher life, and it would be so much 
better if you could, so much more helpful. 
And yet the body has to be fed, I know. It 
has to be clothed. I know that and don't for- 
get those things in my experience, but still 
there is a great deal beside that. That is 
nothing, that is only the covering. 

(Well, I have been told that I should be 
free some time, but I do not see much pros- 
pect of it now.) 

Yes, I do. I see all round you light, which 
indicates more rest, less hard work, and that 
is the reason why I spoke to you, — if it was 
not very near you. It must be, I can see it so 
plainly. 

Will you tell me now if you are really hav- 
ing any rest? 

(A little in the evening, that is all.) 

Work all day? 

(Yes.) 

Isn't it daytime with you now ? 

(I got off. I got excused.) 

But that is something new for you. 

(Well, I managed it.) 



ii2 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

I mean, it isn't a thing that you — you used 
to stick pretty well. 

(I would not get off for anything but you, 
to come and see you. I would give up every- 
thing for that.) 

Oh, yes. Are you really physically well? 

(I am quite well, and trying to be very 
well.) 

[I mention some slight physical ailment.] 

Well, don't you know you must be out in 
the air a great deal. You must go what we 
used to call walking, and be out in the air a 
great deal, too. You can get out. Don't 
confine yourself to the four walls of your room. 
Now that is my advice. Can't you go up to 
the library? You remember the library. Go 
up there and get a little reading matter. Take 
the walk to and fro. Go back and read a 
little, take in a little study. That will help 
us in the work and that is all you need to do. 
Eat slowly. Don't hurry so. Take plenty of 
time and be careful what you do eat. That 
is my advice to you. I am a little weak just 
now and my thoughts begin to tremble. 

(Are you speaking through the medium, or 
is Hiram interpreting for you now?) 

Hiram is doing it for me. I could not take 
possession of the medium yet. 

(Can you do it some time?) 

Yes, but not just now. I am trying to un- 
derstand the laws and the workings of the 



REPORTS OF SITTINGS 113 

machine, and they put me up here so I could 
see. Just like a schoolboy being sent to the 
board to figure out a multiplication table. I 
am set up here, I am held here, and there are 
three clergymen, one behind me and one on 
either side of me, holding me up here and tell- 
ing me to talk, and I am talking to Hiram, 
and Hiram is repeating it after me, and I am 
trying to do a sum in geometry. That is just 
what I am trying to do. And since I am not 
fully equipped in that problem perhaps you 
can understand something of the difficulty. 

(I think you are doing wonderfully well.) 

But I can hear you, and so long as I can 
hear you and get my thoughts over the line 
clear, that is all I want. 

(General, as far as I have heard, you have 
done wonderfully well for the first time.) 

They have been preparing me for months 
and months to make me understand it. They 
have put me up here and taken me away again. 
They have held me up and showed me the 
Light, and said, " do this and do that, and see 
this and see that," and shown me the details, 
and the ins and outs and the whys and where- 
fores, and why shouldn't I learn something 
after having it hammered into me all that 
time. Then I said, well, I must reach her. 
It is an utter impossibility for me to [let go ?] 
until I do. [I will] move heaven and earth, 
but I must reach her. And they said: 



ii 4 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

" Wait, you have got to learn. You must go 
here with us, you must stand on this side, hold 
up your hands, bow your head, speak in this 
kind of a way, speak slowly, articulate distinct- 
ly," — but without the preparation there is a 
good deal of confusion. But they are very, 
very good to me, and they know — what they 
don't know about the details of this Light is 
not worth knowing, I assure you that, if you 
can grasp me. With your clear mind you can 
grasp it pretty well, I think. 

[There is some talk about the private work 
and he expresses himself very emphatically.] 

(General, you are just as positive as you 
used to be, aren't you?) 

[The psychic seemed to smile.] 

Perhaps you would not recognize me if I 
was not. Well, I have retained my individ- 
uality, thank God. Do you know where 
Poland is, Poland [hesitating only a moment] 
Springs ? 

(Oh, I guess I do.) 

Do you remember about it? 

(Yes, indeed.) 

Well, I don't think anybody except our- 
selves — 

(Why, they know where it is, of course.) 

But I mean I had an interest in it. I 
mean I loved it. 

(I know you loved it much.) 

You might go there some time. You 



REPORTS OF SITTINGS 115, 

know it came into my mind as soon as could 
be. 

[The place where the famous Poland 
Spring is located is the one spot on earth that 
he loved. He was born about three miles 
from the hill on which the large hotel now 
stands. He was always supplied with the 
water and thought it the finest water in the 
world. There was no thought of the place in 
my mind when he made reference to it.] 

Here is little Augustus. Don't you see 
him? 

(Is he here?) 

Yes, as happy as a bee, just as busy. He is 
a dear little fellow. 

(Give him my love if he understands it.) 

Well, I will. He will be glad to have it. 
Do you remember rubbing my arms? 

(Yes.) 

Well, they don't need rubbing any more, 
thank God. 

Now before I get too weak — you know 
this is quite an effort for me for the first time 
— before my thoughts begin to wander, have 
you got any especial question you wish to ask 
me about my life, about anything — 

(Well, General, I want you to try and think 
up some of the details of the last moments, or 
rather, after you passed out, the first few 
days.) 

[I referred to details of what happened 



n6 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

with me, or at his home, but my question is 
not clear.] 

I know what it was. When I first passed 
out my mind was cloudy, rather confused. I 
felt as though I was going into space, did not 
know where, drifting as it were, for a few 
hours — that was all — and then I felt as 
though there was a strong hand grasped me 
and said to me : " It is all right, it is all 
over." And I said: " What is over? " I 
could not seem to understand what it all meant, 
and after a little while, perhaps an hour, pos- 
sibly an hour or two, I saw oh such a light! 
You cannot imagine it, cannot conceive what it 
is like. It is the most brilliant and yet the 
softest moonlight that you ever saw, and I 
thought, what a beautiful light it was! And 
all of a sudden I saw people moving about. I 
saw their heads, their figures. Then they 
seemed all clad in white, and I could not seem 
to make them out. They were moving in the 
air. 

And I said: "What is this place? 
Where am I ? What am I ? What has hap- 
pened?" It was all such a puzzle to me. 
When I get strong I will tell you about it. I 
can't tell you any more. Now what you want 
me to do, think over the few days — 

(Before I come again, I mean.) 

— and when I come back, to tell you what 
my experience was, I tell you one thing, the 



REPORTS OF SITTINGS 117 

clergyman who is talking for me now was the 
best friend I ever had, and he said: " Come 
along, it is all right, I will show you the way ; 
it is all right, you will get over this confusion 
in a minute, and I will help you." And I 
said: "Who are you? What are you? 
What are you here for? Where am I? 
Where am I going? What am I doing? 
What does all this mean?" He said: 
" Never mind, it will all be clear to you in a 
few minutes. Just wait patiently and come 
with me." And he stood ready to welcome 
me. 

(Well, who was he?) 

Well, his name is Hart. 

(Oh!) 

He says : " I know who you know, you 
know who I know, now we will be friends to- 
gether, and this is all right; I have had ex- 
perience and I know, and I will explain it to 
you in a few minutes." I thought I saw the 
doctor bending over me and I wanted him to 
get away. He seemed to be in my way as I 
was going out. I wanted to get away from 
him, and all of a sudden I was going through 
this misty, cloudy way, and then I went past 
[possibly " fast," word not caught] until I 
got to this light, and it was like going up, up, 
up in the air, in a balloon as it were. You 
could not conceive of anything more strange 
and beautiful, in a sense — the confusion was 



n8 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

not so beautiful, but because it was so I could 
not seem to retain my consciousness and could 
not seem to be released from the burden that 
hung over me, and all of a sudden, the moment 
I realized that this hand was on my arm, then 
I began to see clearly ; and from that moment 
I have been advancing and going on, and I 
have seen everybody I ever knew, and I have 
had the happiest time you could imagine. I 
have a mansion all my own and live in it just 
the same as you live in your place there, just 
the same. I have walls, I have pictures, I 
have music, I have books, I have poetry, I 
have everything. 

(I see.) 

It is not a fac simile of that life, but that life 
is a miserable shadow of what this really is, 
and when I get strong, as I become stronger, 
and, — that is, more accustomed to using this 
line, I can tell you more clearly about it. 

Well, it has been, oh, I can't tell you what 
it means to me to see you. I can't tell you 
how you have cleared my mind. I can't tell 
you what you have done for me. Now I am 
going to repay it all back by turning and work- 
ing for you. 

[It was early morning when the General 
died. His doctor was not present. Two of 
his sons were present and must have been 
bending over him, for as they were helping 
him back into his chair which he had left for 



REPORTS OF SITTINGS 119 

a few moments his strength gave way en- 
tirely and he passed out shortly after. 

Hiram Hart was not a clergyman in this 
life, but he came in time to be spoken of at the 
sittings as such and I was told that he had be- 
come one. Although he passed out nine years 
before I became acquainted with the General, 
he seems to have been the latter's guide 
through the misty passage that separates the 
two worlds.] 

I think I shall have to go. How long have 
I been here ? 

(Nearly an hour.) 

An hour in the earthly world? Well, I 
don't know how long that is, but I am too 
weak to remain; that is, I am afraid I can't 
use this Light any more. 

[A few words of farewell. Then, in a 
most natural, persuasive tone, as if addressing 
a child:] 

Come, Augustus, you come with me, dear, 
and we will go and find some play toys. We 
will have a good time together. Come with 
grandpa, come along. 

[Then as if addressing me :] 

He is going. 

Rector returns 

It is I, Rector. 

(I am glad to see you, Rector.) 



120 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

I have returned, friend, because our Leader 
said to me to keep the passageway clear and 
keep all right. Friend, all is right in thy 
world with us this day. Thou hast good con- 
ditions for us. Art thou aware of it? 

(I am glad to know that.) 

[I had a long talk with Rector, during 
which I asked:] 

(Is the General coming here much through 
this medium?) 

At times he is. He is a marvelous person- 
ality and he has a very clear mind, and he has 
a very earnest desire to work for God and 
humanity. 

[It must be remembered that the spirit 
known as " Rector," the so-called " control," 
always appears at the opening of a sitting and 
again at its close. Sometimes there are long 
conversations with him, much spiritual advice 
and help is given, and quite often messages for 
other persons are received by the sitter, or 
messages from other persons are delivered by 
the sitter to the trance personalities.] 

Close 

SITTING OF MAY 24, 1904 

[Soon after the opening of this sitting Rec- 
tor introduced to me a personality purporting 
to be a physician, who held a long conversa- 
tion with me in regard to my health. He told 



REPORTS OF SITTINGS 121 

me that he formerly lived in Boston, that he 
was in Paris when he passed out, that he had 
been gone possibly a year or two. I after- 
wards ascertained that a physician by the name 
given, one with which I was not familiar, had 
lived on Beacon St., Boston, and died in Paris 
early in the preceding September. This ex- 
plains reference to " the doctor " in opening 
remarks below.] 

The General 

[Psychic coughing] 

Well, I wonder if there is anybody wishes 
to see me ! 

(Hiram?) 

No, my name is Martin. I want to see 
Miss Robbins. Is she present? 

(Is this you, General?) 

It is . . . I am delighted to see you, 
that goes without saying. Well, how are 
you? 

(Oh, I am pretty well.) 

You look splendidly. I saw the doctor, I 
met him. As I came in he was just going out. 
By the way, I want to give you a bit of advice. 
Whatever you do in that world, don't overdo. 
You know I was a great one to preach. 

(Well, no, I don't think you were.) 

Well, that makes me laugh. You know I 
don't think I did preach very much, but I am 
going to preach now. I am going to tell you 



122 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

to take care of yourself and the Lord will take 
care of you. What are you doing? 

(Now I want to take down every word that 
you say and what I say.) 

Well, you can do it, you are equal to it. I 
will try to be as slow as I can. Well, are you 
pretty well? 

(Yes, pretty well, I am going to be better.) 

You want to get some of these friends over 
here after you. I have been studying into this 
thing, studying the laws of our nature — that 
is, its problems on our side — and I am per- 
fectly delighted with the conditions. I am 
perfectly delighted with the thought of return- 
ing. I seek you out and follow you night and 
day. I am often standing by your side when 
you don't realize it, and I stand there and 
laugh at myself to see how utterly unconcerned 
you are in regard to my presence, but I say but 
if her spiritual eyes could open and she could 
see me as I am I know she would be delighted. 
By the way, haven't you a sister? 

(Yes.) m 

She has just passed through some sorrow in 
the earthly world? 

(Yes.) 

What has been her sorrow, her loss, has 
been somebody else's gain. Because she had, 
well, I think it is a husband — ... 

[1 have a sister whose husband passed out 
in the early part of this year, only a few 



REPORTS OF SITTINGS 123 

months previously. I have other sisters, but 
do not live with any of them. This particular 
sister had just been spending some months 
with me. My communicator had met her 
once or twice only in life, and was not at all 
well acquainted.] 

[I think I asked at this point if he was talk- 
ing through Rector, my question not being 
recorded.] 

Oh, Rector is holding the Light. I could 
not, they would not allow me to do that. Not 
quite now, but I may be able to later. But 
they have to support the Light, some friend 
has to look after it. 

(Do you want me to tell you a few things, 
just the same as if you were here?) 

Just the same. How is Everett, by the 
way? 

[Everett is one of his sons, now living.] 

(Everett is well. I saw him a few days 
ago and took supper with him and his 
family — ) 

[Interrupting] 

I know it. I know about the children. 
You know there is a little one over here. We 
are very friendly with each other, and just as 
near to each other as we ever could be. 

[There is more talk about his son, and I 
ask:] 

(When do you think it would be well to 
send a message to him?) 



I2 4 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

I think it would be perfectly safe to do it, 
— well, we will say in a few months. 

[Further talk on same line] 

Don't you remember the talks we used to 
have together about this thing? And then I 
was a little skeptical, I could not seem to take 
it in. But I have taken it in to my satisfac- 
tion. 

[I relate to him a story of something that 
transpired during his last illness, of which he 
was entirely ignorant, something which in- 
volved a reference to a number of his old 
friends, most of them well known public 
men.] 

(Do you think you would remember any of 
the names if I should mention them?) 

I think I should. Many names have gone 
from me, naturally, and new ones have come 
up to me. Names of places, names of people 
whom I knew in the mortal world, have gone 
from me to a certain extent, and as I go on 
they go still farther from me, but I shall never 
forget you. I remember when I was suffer- 
ing so, I remember the little councils we had 
together, and they have lasted in my memory 
and will to the end of all life. 

(General, it seems to be the real spiritual 
sympathies that you remember only — ) 

Yes, well, those are the vital ones, those are 
the real ones. And when you understand 
better the conditions of life and the conditions 



REPORTS OF SITTINGS 125 

of passing from that life to this, the changes 
in the life as it were, you will understand more 
clearly what that means. But until then it 
will be difficult for you to understand it 
fully. I have got to go out a moment — you 
will excuse me — I must go for a little change. 
My thoughts begin to wander, and if I stayed 
you would be displeased with my wandering 
thoughts, so I will just go out and get re- 
freshed and return instantly. 

[Silence for perhaps a minute, possibly not 
as long] 

Are you still here? 

(Yes.) 

I feel better now. I want to know about 
the help to my family. What help have they 
now? 

[Some talk about family omitted.] 

(You remember that you thought you knew 
the name of the new baby, and you said it was 
Augustus; well, it was not Augustus, but 
the mother told me that they called him 
Augustus nearly all the time — ) 

Yes, that is what led me — what is his 
name? 

(It is William Everett. They call him 
Augustus when they speak about him.) 

I heard it so much I felt sure it was his 
name. Now I want to know how you are 
getting on and what you think about our 
writing that book. 



126 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

[Immediately reverts to family again.] 

(General, shall I tell you one or two more 
things before you speak of the book?) 

Yes, you might. 

(There was a man in the State's prison — 
you know — you used to see him sometimes 
with your old friend Chase — ) 

Oh yes ! 

( — and when you passed away he found it 
out and got together a dollar or two and gave 
it to some one and asked him if he would buy 
a rosebush and put it on your grave. I wrote 
him a letter after that about it, and now he is 
out of prison, and he came to see me to thank 
me for the letter and express his admiration 
and love for you.) 

That is very beautiful, very beautiful. I 
am very glad to hear that. Who was he? 

(Oh, he was some old burglar or some- 
thing, nobody that you cared anything 
about — ) 

[I apologize to-day, 1909, to whom it may 
concern, for this thoughtless reply.] 

But had a heart? 

(Yes, had a heart. Now do you remember 
how you used to lecture on Gettysburg?) 

Oh, yes, I do, yes I do very well. 

(Well, after you went away I got your 
speeches and put them together and made a 
nice good complete copy, as well as I could, 
and your wife has one of them and I have one. 



REPORTS OF SITTINGS 127 

Did you know anything about it when I was 
doing it?) 

Well, yes, I knew the outline, but the work 
itself, the actual work as it was going on, I 
could not fathom. But I knew the work 
concerned my mortal life and things that 
transpired in it. But the nature of it I could 
not define. We know generally what takes 
place in a general way, but if we were to define 
it, condense it and give utterance to it, it would 
be difficult. But such is the law of this life. 

Remember, now, if you could see me you 
would say I was a mere film, and you would 
say, ' how transparent and peculiar and how 
light and how strange you look to me ; ' and 
you would say, ' where is your body ? you 
look like a shadow, as it were,' but still I could 
talk with you, we could converse with each 
other, and you would be surprised to see how 
real I am. The passing out is really beau- 
tiful, just after you once get beyond the 
border, it is perfectly beautiful. You know 
the meaning of the word heaven? Well, it is 
heaven indeed. But the coming back is a 
little confusing at first and we have to learn. 

(I think you are good to come back from 
such a place.) 

Well, I have attractions and you seek for 
me and I find you. Don't get nervous, keep 
calm, we shall have time to say all there is to 
say. 



128 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

(Did you know anything about your funeral 
at the time?) 

Yes, I knew it and saw the body and saw 
the flowers. I saw the way in which it was 
laid out. I saw — don't you think it looked 
well ? I looked as though I was asleep, don't 
you think so? And I don't think the face 
showed suffering — that is, the clay did not 
show the suffering, the body itself — but I 
felt, oh, I was so pleased to be out and away 
from the atmosphere, I felt so choked and so 
distressed for breath, and the moment I was 
released from the imprisoning body then I 
could breathe perfectly. I felt, — I could not 
describe it to you. 

(Well, you had a beautiful funeral and a 
large one, and do you remember your old 
friend Horton, the minister? 

[Rev. Edward A. Horton, who conducted 
the funeral service. They were familiar 
friends.] 

Yes, yes, very well. 

(I wrote him and thanked him for all he 
said, and thanked him for you, too. Was 
that right?) 

Beautiful, that is beautiful! What did he 
say? 

(Oh, he wrote me a very nice letter, and he 
said if I was satisfied he thought it must have 
been satisfactory to others, because I was so 
close to you and knew you so well.) 



REPORTS OF SITTINGS 129 

That is beautiful. I can only say to that, 
Amen. 

[Only one or two remarks of a personal 
nature omitted here.] 

(Now I will let you say what you want to.) 

I want to say this, that when you are work- 
ing I sometimes dictate thoughts to you, and 
it is surprising to me to see how clearly you 
register them, and I think sometimes you are 
surprised to think that you have done what 
you have, and if you just stop and give me a 
thought you would know why it was that you 
did those things, registered those thoughts. 
Sometimes there seems to be a barrier between 
you and your thoughts, they are not clear, and 
they seem to be a little obscure, and then they 
clear up [marvelously], and you have always 
attributed that to the condition of your own 
brain, and now if you just give me credit for a 
little bit of help you would do the right thing. 
Not that I am egotistic, but the point is that I 
am really with you. And I want to say one 
thing, that you have not grown old in spirit 
and not in the flesh. It looks so clear to me, 
so free, so bright and so young, and I think 
your body looks the same. I can't see much 
change. Yes, I think you look about the 
same. I can't see the body so clearly as I can 
the spirit. 

(Do you know how old I am?) 

[A brief talk about age omitted. He 



130 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

thought me older than I then was. It was 
evidently the comparison of ages which carried 
him back to old associations, for he immedi- 
ately followed it by saying :] 

You remember how we used to talk in the 
office there? Where is that office now? Is 
it there? Is the building gone away? 

[Referring, I presume, to the office of the 
Board of Police in Pemberton square.] 

(Not that I know of. You mean where we 
were so long together?) 

They are going to remove it and put another 
in its place. 

[This matter was talked of as long ago as 
when he was there, and I think he had plans 
in his own mind for a new building. The 
particular building in which the old office was 
located has not yet (1909) been replaced by a 
new one, although new large buildings have re- 
cently gone up close beside it.] 

(They had to get another lady there, 
couldn't get along without the ladies.) 

I know they did. That is very funny. Do 
you ever see anything of Hanscom ? 

(Oh, why yes, — I don't see him often, but 
he has a good place there and is well and 
comfortable. I am so pleased that you should 
think of his name.) 

I could not help thinking about him. All 
of a sudden I thought of him, and I have seen 
him several times since I passed over. I have 



REPORTS OF SITTINGS 131 

seen him discussing something there with 
another man in the office, and my mind re- 
verted back to the office and the conditions 
until I happened to think of him. He was 
not well at one time, but he is better now — 
that is, since I passed over. 

(Perhaps you like him better than you 
used to?) 

Because I see his principles. 

(I don't believe you quite understood him.) 

I didn't. 

(But I did better than you did.) 

Yes, . . . but I did not understand 
what his active principles were. If you have 
an opportunity I wish in an indirect way, if not 
direct, I wish you could mention me to 
him, will you? Tell him that you have met 
me. 

(Perhaps I might have him call on me, but 
I don't want to give too much of you away, 
you are too precious, but I think he would be 
pleased to hear what you have said about 
him.) 

Well, tell him that I appreciate all his ef- 
forts and everything that he did a great deal 
better perhaps now than ever. And I would 
like to have you tell him that for me. I don't 
want people to think that you are losing your 
mind, but I think you are far more capable of 
keeping your mind by finding me perhaps than 
others, than some of those who perhaps would 



132 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

not listen to it. So we will keep that a secret 
between ourselves. 

(You better leave that to my discretion, 
about seeing him.) 

I will. 

[Orinton M. Hanscom was formerly one of 
the higher officials in the police department. 
In 1888, after a protracted hearing on charges 
preferred against him, and a decided disagree- 
ment among the members of the board in 
regard to the case, he was discharged from 
the force. I have memoranda in shorthand 
under date of December, 1888, to the effect 
that Dr. Phinuit, the early control of Mrs. 
Piper, predicted to me that Mr. Hanscom 
would sometime go back to his old position. 
In March, 1889, the prediction was repeated, 
that he would go back to his old position or to 
his old surroundings. He was out of the de- 
partment six years. In 1894, after General 
Martin became chairman of the board, his 
case was reopened and he was reinstated in 
the department, being appointed to a higher 
position than the one he formerly occupied, 
namely, that of deputy-superintendent. There 
had formerly never been more than one deputy- 
superintendent, but now two more men were 
given that ranking, Mr. Hanscom being one 
of them. The General, therefore, had shown 
himself very friendly to Mr. Hanscom, but 
when, after the reinstatement, they came to be 



REPORTS OF SITTINGS 133 

actively associated, I think there was a feeling 
of disappointment on the part of the General 
in Mr. Hanscom. The latter was a man of 
rather broad outlook, with ideas of reform, 
which he liked to discuss, but his ideas did 
not always seem to be appreciated by his 
fellows or superiors. The General wanted 
his orders put into effect quickly, even though 
they might be difficult of execution. There 
was, therefore, this lack of harmony between 
the two men, which was perfectly apparent to 
me at the time. Therefore the remarks of 
my communicator given above, to the effect 
that he did not understand his active principles, 
but that he appreciated all his efforts now 
better than he ever did before, wishing to be 
remembered to Mr. Hanscom, are extremely 
pertinent. Some time after date of this sitting 
I met Mr. Hanscom accidentally and gave 
him the substance of the message, which he 
received with the courtesy habitual to him, 
refraining from criticism. Since then he has 
himself passed away. x ] 

1 Since the above was written Mr. Hanscom has pur- 
ported to return. This occurred at a sitting which took 
place on Dec. 16, 1908. The communications were sud- 
denly broken off and I was told that a friend wanted 
to speak to me. I had no thought of any one but 
Hiram Hart, who I presumed was interrupting for a 
word of greeting. Rector stumbled a little over the 
name, but only a little, calling it " Hanson." Not till that 
moment did the thought of Hanscom enter my mind. I 
asked Rector to get the name exactly, and he spelled it 
out easily and correctly : "Hanscom — Orin. Don't 



i 3 4 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

[In conversation about my private work, 
where it would be best to spend my vacation, 
etc., I say:] 

(Greenacre, — don't you remember I used 
to go there?) 

I should approve of that at once, and sanc- 
tion it. 

[Reference to Greenacre will appear in a 
later sitting.] 

Do you remember a woman you used to 
talk to me about in the body who used to 
have, — the spirits used to speak through 
her? 

(Yes.) 

[This refers, of course, to Mrs. Piper.] 

Well, I want you some time to be in her 
surrounding when I am not speaking and see 
if I can reach you, see if the thoughts will be 
clearer to you. I think it would be worth 
while to try it, because I often reach over the 
line when I don't speak. 

(Do you mean when the Light is not 
working?) 

you remember Orin?" It did not occur to me until after 
the sitting that the Christian name should have been 
" Orinton " and not " Orin." I do not know whether his 
intimate friends called him " Orin " when in life or not, 
but it is quite likely they did. There was a very brief con- 
versation. He said : " What a happy ending to a 
blighted career ! " Mrs. Piper, in her normal state, faintly 
recalled the name as that of some one whom she had 
heard spoken of, but said she did not know that he had 
passed to the Other Side. His death occurred in No- 
vember, 1907. 



REPORTS OF SITTINGS 135 

When the Light is not working, when it is 
closed. 

(We were together a while ago in an 
evening, but then there were a good many 
people about.) 

I mean quietly, when there is nobody about 
except the spiritual intelligences and when we 
are not actually acting upon it, and I think 
ideas would come to you very clearly. 

[I cannot say that any special experiment 
on my part was made in accordance with this 
request. Opportunities to be with Mrs. Piper 
alone, when not in trance, were rare with me.] 

I have got to go out to get my breath. I 
will be right back in a moment, but I have to 
refresh myself. 

[While the General is apparently out, 
Hiram Hart steps in, speaking hurriedly as if 
he had only a moment, and saying that he saw 
the other gentleman " going out," so thought 
he would " come in " and say " how do you 
do." As he appears to be going I say: " Oh, 
have you got to go?" He replies: "Oh, 
they have kept him so clear I want him to 
learn what I know." The other gentleman 
then returns.] 

Well, I am right back here again. I met 
Mr. Hart and he told me he just wanted to 
speak to you a moment while I was refreshing 
myself, so I said " go ahead and ask Rector if 
you can get in." Wasn't he a clergyman? 



136 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

(He was not here, but he says he is now.) 

Well, he is preaching and praying and help- 
ing all the people that come over this side — 
or the spirits — and he is a wonderful 
preacher and he has done a great deal for me, 
and I am glad to know him because he was 
your friend. They say it is not all gold that 
glitters, but there is a great deal glitters here 
that is gold. 

(Well, he seems to admire you. He says 
you are very handsome.) 

[Laughing] 

Well, I suppose he thinks so. 

(You used to be here.) 

Oh, you think so ? There is no accounting 
for tastes, you know. But we have to accept 
those things. He is a good soul and I like 
him. He has done, I say, a great deal for me, 
pointed out the way a great many times. 

(Now, General, I will let you say what you 
want to, but you were going to tell me some- 
thing, — what happened just after you went 
out, either on this side or on your side. Give 
me some new ideas, will you?) 

Yes, I will. You know the actual passing 
out of the body, there is a little feeling 
of, sort of depression, as it were, and then 
when I passed out, just as I passed out, 
I began to feel uplifted. I felt as though 
the air was filled with perfume, and I was 
[soaring], rising, rising, rising above my 



REPORTS OF SITTINGS 137 

body until I passed behind simply a veil. 
It is thin. It blinds your vision. It ob- 
structs the vision for a moment from the 
earthly world. Then after we have passed 
beyond it, why the music, the flowers, the 
trees, the birds, the lakes, the rivers, the 
hills, the gardens, the walks, are perfectly 
magnificent, perfectly magnificent, and nothing 
in the earthly world hardly can even 
correspond to them. And we are taken up by 
perhaps a priest, or man that acts in the ca- 
pacity of what: you would understand as a 
clergyman, and they say: " This is a state of 
transition. You are now in the real life, in 
the new life. You will not see the face of the 
Father for many, many years, but He will give 
you strength and power to go back if you wish 
and see those whom you have left behind." 
And the feeling of ecstasy is beyond descrip- 
tion, and no spirit that ever returned to earth 
could begin to describe it for the understand- 
ing of the mortal mind. 

And then I was surrounded by friends, by 
acquaintances, by old war veterans, by my in- 
timate friends whom I know, members of my 
family and all, surrounded by them, wel- 
coming me. Why, I felt as though I should 
be enveloped by them, the delight was so 
great, but when I tried to call them by name 
I was at a loss to do so. They had to tell me 
who they were. I knew their faces, not one 



138 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

failed to me. I knew them and understood 
them well. I saw them and recognized them, 
but to call them by name, believe me, I could 
not. And when I tried to speak I found in- 
stead of it being an effort and difficult for me 
to speak, I found that my thoughts were un- 
derstood, actually understood, and their 
thoughts were returned to me. There was a 
perfect communion between us. 

And then I was taken — would you believe 
it if I should tell you? I was taken to an 
actual mansion. It would be what you would 
call a palace. There is a garden, walks about 
it. It is divided into rooms, actual compart- 
ments. I was taken to that and [they] said: 
" Here is your home; occupy it, live in it; have 
what friends you choose with you, what rela- 
tives you choose with you, and as those whom 
you have left behind follow you, you may 
welcome them to this home as you may see fit." 
Do you understand it? 

(Yes.) _ 

I went in and looked about me. I said: 
"Where does this music come from?" I 
walked through a corridor and turned into a 
room at the right and actually walked without 
fatigue, without effort; I simply glided in. I 
saw beautiful pictures upon the walls, I saw 
beautiful flowers that we called in the body 
palms, growing about me. I heard this beau- 
tiful music. I stepped along to a window and 



REPORTS OF SITTINGS 139 

looked out, and under the window there were 
fifty young, beautiful faces, all playing, — an 
orchestra. That was my welcome, that was 
my serenade, as it were. And they said: 
" This is heaven, this is the spiritual world. 
We greet you." I went to the window and as 
I looked out upon the orchestra they each one 
bowed and waved their hands, and yet the 
music continued. They were playing upon 
instruments, actual instruments, all in har- 
mony, and I never heard anything like it in the 
earthly world. The music was divine. I 
said: " I would like to go elsewhere." I bade 
them good-bye, as it were, — I just saluted 
them and passed along across the corridor 
back through the room, across the corridor 
into the opposite side. 

I said: " Now I would like to see if it is 
possible, I would like to see flowers about me." 
I went to the window, and would you believe, 
the flowers appeared to me in masses, en masse, 
I might say, and I never saw such flowers. 
There were lilies, roses, violets, geraniums, 
carnations, azaleas, hyacinths, tulips, poppies, 
of every conceivable description, not all inter- 
mingled, but each one in its own place. What 
could you find, what could one wish for bet- 
ter than that? 

I said: " Now if it is wise and right that 
I should seek it, I would like to hear some- 
thing that sounds like the voice of a bird." 



i 4 o BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

They said: " Come this way." I was sur- 
rounded by these beautiful friends and by 
clergymen — a good many clergymen there 
and they said some beautiful things — and 
they said: " Come to this window and see." 
But I said: " May I not hear them here? " 
I listened. In a moment the air was filled 
with the music of the different birds. Well, 
you have no conception of what that melody 
was like. I saw the birds. The birds were 
just as distinct, much more so than your own. 
The flowers are real, and as I go back to the 
mortal life and see the crudeness of it and see 
how I lived, the active energy and the active 
life that I then led, the energy which I put into 
that life, I wonder that I ever existed in it at 
all. Now you are not living in the real life. 
You are living in a dream, as it were. When 
you waken from the dream you will live, in the 
eternal life. 

[At this point an acount is given of his 
asking to know something about Christ, to 
know whether he had been deceived in the 
earthly world in what he had been taught 
about Christ, and a description is given of a 
certain vision that was vouchsafed him. I 
have thought best to omit this whole passage, 
except to say that at its close he exclaims :] 

And I live to tell you of it ! 

I walked about, I felt, — it was strange I 
had no hunger, no thirst, no desire to eat, no 



REPORTS OF SITTINGS 141 

desire for food, but I am sustained by the con- 
ditions of the elements. The condition of 
the elements is such that we are fed and 
sustained and live by them. You can under- 
stand it perhaps vaguely if not clearly. You 
have a wonderful power to understand, or 
used to have. I think perhaps you can picture 
me and picture my home and picture my sur- 
roundings. At least, I make it as clear as I 
can for your understanding. 

Now would you like to ask me any ques- 
tions ? Interrupt me if you wish to. 

(Well, what do you do mostly with your 
time?) 

Well, now I will tell you. What would 
correspond with your morning — we have no 
morning, — that is, it is all morning in a sense, 
in a way, — there is no daylight and darkness 
with us, it is all daylight — and what cor- 
responds with your morning — I find that 
there are always entering into this life, there 
are spirits entering constantly from your life, 
and each one needs help, needs to be shown the 
way, and I enter the multitude, the throng out- 
side of my own home; I pass through, I see the 
veil uplifted, I see a spirit passing in, perhaps 
millions of spirits. And I was told when I 
entered it that I must make this life here useful 
by helping others and by reverencing God, 
offering up gratitude in a prayerful spirit to 
Him who created me and gave me the 



142 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

privilege of this life here. And I do that 
through the so-called day, without fatigue, 
with perfect delight, assist some one spirit or 
more who have left the body and entered this 
life. And until they are fully conscious and 
realize where they are — some are taken from 
us, we are not allowed to see them at all, they 
are taken into another sphere; those are passed 
beyond us, we have nothing to do practically 
with them — but there are spirits that enter our 
own sphere, and we each lend a hand, show 
them their homes, settle them in it, go back 
and help another, and we are constantly doing 
that. 

And then I feel sometimes that I would 
like to help in something that corresponds 
with your writing. I find in my home every- 
thing for which I ask. If I wish pencil, what 
corresponds with your pencil, I have it. If 
I wish to write my thoughts I can write them, 
if I wish to speak them I can do so, and every 
thought is granted, every desire is granted. 
And if I wish to lecture, as I often do, I can 
do so without fatigue, and it is helpful to 
those who enter this life. If I wish to write 
I can write, if I wish to walk I can walk, if 
I wish to sing I can sing, if I wish to speak I 
can speak. That makes the life, as you would 
understand it, perfect. It is a perfect life. 
And in order to live this perfect life you have 
got to live in that imperfect life, and the more 



REPORTS OF SITTINGS 143 

you undertake to prepare for this life the less 
you have to go through when you pass it and 
the clearer your thoughts become when you 
enter it. Have you got the idea? Would 
you like to ask me anything? There are in- 
struments all about me, everything you can 
think of — harps, violins, bugles, trumpets, 
horns, pianos, spinnet — do you remember 
what a spinnet is? All those instruments. 

(They are just the same as our instruments, 
only better?) 

Only better. Everything is beautiful, and 
it is in a way, each article, object, as well as 
spirit, is luminiferous. If the eye was opened 
to the spiritual and you could see me as I 
stand .here talking with you, you could see 
every gesture I make, which is copied by 
Rector. He imitates me as I speak with you. 
You could see me and see my home, you could 
see everything that I have in it. 

(Then what do you do in the afternoon?) 

Then in the afternoon sometimes I write a 
lecture, I go out and look at my flowers, enjoy 
them; I go and visit others, they visit me. I 
learn to play on the instruments, the different 
instruments. I am absorbed in music and I 
love the flowers and the birds. 

Then I feel as though I would like to take 
up some intellectual pursuit, and then I begin, 
and I am studying with those who have been 
here longer than myself the actual conditions 



i 4 4 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

of this life and what go to make up the life 
here, and as I learn I give it out to others, 
interpret my knowledge to others. Therefore 
our intellectual capacity is unlimited in a sense, 
and constantly being educated. And it is a 
beautiful idea, is it not? And then all 
through what you would call evening, during 
the evening, what would correspond with your 
evening, there is chiefly music going on, en- 
tertainment and music. Then after that 
passes, what corresponds with your early 
morning or late in the night, there are lectures 
and concerts of all kinds and descriptions go- 
ing on, so that our lives are completely filled. 
And then during the later hours of the morn- 
ing, before what would be your daylight, ev- 
ery single spirit on my side of the spirit life 
where I am [is] bowed in prayer for what 
would be at least two or three hours corres- 
ponding with your time, perfect devotion and 
a prayer. 

(Then you don't have to sleep the way we 
do?) 

Have no sleep, no rest. What corresponds 
with your rest is activity on our part. And 
then after the devotional exercises we are ready 
for what would correspond with your day for 
our work again. Can you conceive of any- 
thing more beautiful or more perfect, or more 
to the liking of a man with my tastes and 
my ideas? 



REPORTS OF SITTINGS 145 

(No.) 
But man should live his allotted time in 
the earthly world to prepare to live and to 
live in this world, but if he takes his life in- 
tentionally or otherwise he remains in a sense 
like a little child here, or a germ, and he has 
to develop, unfold, bud and flower, and he 
must necessarily do so. Ask me anything you 
wish. I am so glad to tell you this because 
I want you to get some conception of what I 
am and what I am doing. This is not an 
idle, useless life here, — ah, no, not at all. 

(How long does it take for you to come to 
me?) 

[I meant at any time when I might think 
of him or call him, but I evidently did not 
make my meaning clear.] 

I would seem some distance from you if 
you could see me as I am. When you have 
a desire to speak with me — there are spirits 
here who know every mortal on the face of 
the earth; that is, the same one does not know, 
but the different ones know every mortal — 
and they say : " Here is a friend, I think 
she is a friend of yours; there the Light is 
beginning to burn, it is open ; we have attached 
the ethereal cord and we will remove the 
spirit from the Light, take it to our world or 
out on the cord, attach the cord to the shell, 
as it were, fill it with our ethereal light, and 
you can enter into it and see if it is your friend, 



146 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

and if so follow Rector, follow those that are 
used to the cord and go to the end of it and 
speak over it to Rector, who is actually within 
the shell himself, and he will transmit your 
messages to your friend." It takes in all, I 
suppose, of your time five or ten minutes per- 
haps for me to reach you. 

[There is a brief talk about relationships, 
and I say:] 

(You choose your own friends there, as 
here, don't you?) 

Just the same. 

It has been a perfect pleasure for me to see 
you again. Good-bye. God bless you. 
Come and see me again. May God watch 
over you. 

Close 

SITTING OF DECEMBER 20, I9O4 

[During the morning hours of the date 
given above, while my sitting was going on, 
another of Mrs. Piper's sitters underwent a 
surgical operation of some sort. I had not 
been told that an operation was to take place, 
nor do I know to-day who this person was. 
Rector explained to me that Imperator was 
obliged to be absent from the sitting, that he 
had left Prudens in charge while he, Impera- 
tor, was " over and around the cot " of a 



REPORTS OF SITTINGS 147 

member of the circle. Near the close of the 
sitting, which lasted two hours, I was asked 
to take a message to Dr. Hodgson to the ef- 
fect that the operation had gone on well. I 
noted the exact time when this was told me 
and sent the message to Dr. Hodgson by tel- 
egram at the earliest possible moment. I af- 
terwards learned that the operation had gone 
on well, and that the person operated upon 
was much gratified on being told at an early 
hour what came from the Other Side of the 
Veil in regard to himself, communicated first 
to me, by me to Dr. Hodgson, and by the lat- 
ter to the person concerned.] 

Rector 

[During the course of Rector's remarks I 
say:] 

(Rector, wait a moment. Through whom 
is my friend going to talk now?) 

He will try and speak direct to thee, if this 
be possible; if not I shall remain, as it were, 
a non-entity, giving his messages. 

(You have allowed him to do that?) 

Yes, I have, through the advice and com- 
mand of our Leader. 

(Now, Rector, my friend is really and truly 
here almost exactly the same as if he were in 
his own body, is he not?) 

Almost the same, and if thy spiritual eyes 



148 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

could open thou wouldst see him standing here 
beside the ethereal cord, waiting his turn to 
enter into the Light upon the cord. 

The General 

Are you here? 

(Yes.) 

I am here to meet you. Oh how happy I 
am! 

(Who is it? Don't be offended, will you?) 

[Rattles off some lines of poetry, evidently 
some of the same words which came on the 
occasion of his first return, Dec. 23, 1903. 
I afterwards found the verse which he was 
quoting, which is by Charles Mackay, and 
runs as follows : — 

Tell me, ye winged winds 

That round my pathway roar, 
Do ye not know some spot 

Where mortals weep no more; 
Some lone and pleasant dell, 

Some valley in the West, 
Where free from toil and pain, 

The weary soul may rest? 

This bursting out into some language which 
was rythmical, especially when he was happy, 
was most characteristic of him in life.] 

Yes, the answer comes to me in the spirit, 
I have found it. I have found the rest, the 
life, the peace, hope, everything I hoped to 
find. . . . Now you know who it is? 



REPORTS OF SITTINGS 149 

(Oh, I know any way, only I thought I 
would just ask you that.) 

Well, if you should say " General " I should 
be pleased to hear it. 

(When I first knew you I could not get used 
to calling you " General," but after I did get 
accustomed to it I could not call you anything 
else, because that seemed to be the right name 
for you.) 

You thought it applicable? 

(Yes.) 

Well, that is pleasant. . . . Remem- 
ber that the laws of vibration are very won- 
derful, very, very great, and my thought 
reaches you and vice versa. Therefore, for 
what more could I ask? [Something about 
his family doing well] My friends are loyal 
and I am happy, and the mere fact of my re- 
turning and speaking with you is an inspiration 
beyond description. 

(Well, it helps me more than anything else 
I do.) 

These good saints have helped me to under- 
stand the laws of communication, and I am 
not so much of an idiot that I should laugh at 
it or pooh-pooh at it further. 

(Well, you would better not.) 

How can I ? The reality, it is a stern real- 
ity, and such a reality that it is the only thing 
which God hath given us to enable us to un- 



1 5 o BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

derstand the laws of the eternal life. Is not 
that beautiful? 

(Yes.) 

Is it not beautiful? And it is the only- 
way. So the casting off of the mere body, 
the shell, is nothing, it is nothing; it goes to 
waste, but my spirit lives to speak. 

(General — ) 

Without the wires I could not communicate 
so easily, but with the wires my thoughts are 
registered clearly, are they not? 

(Yes. General — ) 

Yes? 

(You are taking Rector's place to-day, 
aren't you?) 

For the first time I am, yes. Dear creature, 
he is here to help me, he stands beside me 
watching me to see that no harm comes to 
the instrument over which I speak. 

(Well, it is not so very hard, is it?) 

No, not hard, but if you were to question 
me one question after another it might con- 
fuse me, but you ask your questions so clearly, 
so slowly and in moderation, that I can under- 
stand them and reply. But if you were to 
fire questions at me, so to speak, volley after 
volley, it would confuse me so I should be 
obliged to go out. You understand? 

(Yes.) 

You look so well. ... I see your 
spirit so clearly. I see what I did not use 



REPORTS OF SITTINGS 151 

to see. I saw the physical and not so much 
the spirit. I see the spirit and the physical 
both combined. They both seem clear to me 
and beautiful. I am glad you followed out 
my instructions. I saw you in the place which 
I designated. 

(Do you know where that is now? What 
do you mean?) 

I saw you in a place with a lady, a very 
beautiful character, a very interesting charac- 
ter. 

(Do you know who that is, or when it 
was?) 

It is what we used to call summer, and it 
was in a green place, in a green place, and 
everything so beautiful, so peaceful. 

[I spent several weeks during the preced- 
ing summer at a place called " Greenacre," 
in the town of Eliot, state of Maine. It is 
sometimes called " Greenacre-on-the-Piscata- 
qua." Summer conferences have been held 
there for a number of years past, a large as- 
sembly-tent is erected on the greensward in- 
dicated by the name, and representatives of 
all religions are welcomed to the open plat- 
form.] 

I saw you attending something seemed like 
lectures. I saw you conversing with an oc- 
casional gentleman, and I saw you sitting — 
it looked like a tent — 

(Yes.) 



152 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

— and saw you walking about. 

(Yes.) 

I saw you, — was it in a hammock? Some- 
thing swinging. 

(Yes, once or twice.) 

And I saw you sitting there thinking, as it 
were, alone, and it seemed as though the shad- 
ows of night had fallen, and it was in the 
evening. 

(Oh, yes.) 

[I think it was at this point that I recalled 
a special evening. See explanation later.] 

And I came and stood beside you and put 
my hand on your shoulder, and I heard you 
say, "how peaceful, how perfectly delightful 
it is." Do you remember it? 

(Yes.) 

Do you remember seeing the moon? The 
heavens seemed dark and then the moon ap- 
peared. It was early in the evening. And 
then I saw you get up, somebody came and 
spoke to you and you got up, walked about a 
little and went inside a building. 

(I was in this hammock, I think twice, but 
one night a long time, and I even fell asleep 
there.) 

Yes, that was the time when I put my hand 
on your shoulder and had the beautiful mes- 
sages of peace from your spirit. 

(Well, I went to sleep, oh very easily and 
beautifully, and I woke up and thought how 



REPORTS OF SITTINGS 153 

beautiful it was to sleep there under the 
stars — ) 

Yes, stars, that is what I mean. 

( — and I even got locked out of the 
house.) 

Yes, yes, I know there was some difficulty 
in your getting in. I know that. And then 
I remember the surprise which came over you 
when you [recovered]. 

(Yes, I was surprised.) 

And I was with you all through that little 
sleep, talking with your spirit. Do you re- 
member what a peaceful wave came through 
you? 

(Yes.) 

It was I who sent it, who brought it. 

(When I sleep like that it seems as if I 
was off somewhere ; I am perfectly unconscious 
of this world, and where am I then?) 

The spirit, your spirit, goes out upon an 
ethereal cord, just the same as the spirit of the 
Light here departs. Now I see the spirit of 
a woman going out, and it is the same in sleep, 
and I talk with your spirit just the same as I 
am talking with you now. Sometimes I al- 
most feel that you will remember it, but when 
the spirit becomes active and fully possessed 
of the body and mind, then it forgets. 

(Yes. Do you mean that is so always 
in sleep, or only in those occasional sleeps?) 

Under certain conditions, only. The sleep 



i 5 4 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

might be disturbed if the spirit communicated 
with it always, but upon certain occasions and 
under certain conditions we are able to talk 
with the spirit very, very clearly. The spirit 
understands and answers — 

(You mean the earthly spirit?) 

Yes, just the same as you answer me when 
I speak with you now. Why, to know that 
I can follow you, to know that I can see you 
in certain places and under certain conditions 
— and do you remember the tent ? 

(Yes, yes!) 

Well, I saw you under the tent and sat be- 
side you several times, and there was another 
lady with you. Who was that lady? She 
was a beautiful spirit, a bright, beautiful look- 
ing woman, a very clear mind and beautiful 
spirit. Is her name Sarah? 

(Wait a moment. You know I am taking 
this all down, don't you, General?) 

I do not see what you are actually doing. 
I see your thoughts are busy, very busy. 

(I want to preserve every word. And it 
is so delightful to think that I can write down 
in shorthand just what you say, just exactly as 
I used to do when you were here.) 

Oh, yes, I remember, that is what you are 
doing. Well, I do not actually see the writ- 
ing going on, or the motion of your hand, or 
the — paper, is it? But I see you, your gen- 
eral outline, and I see you, as it were, in the 



REPORTS OF SITTINGS 155 

light. You look as though there was a light 
all about you. 

(Well, now let's be slow.) 

That is the reflection of the spirit about 
you. 

(My spirit?) 

Yes, your own spirit. There is a reflec- 
tion, as it were, all about you. It is very 
clear and very beautiful to me. 

(Do you mean Sarah Farmer?) 

I should not wonder. That sounds some- 
thing like the name I heard her called by. 
She was not actually with you, but I saw you 
with her and saw you talking with her, and 
she has a very large spirit, a very broad spirit, 
and a very large and beautiful mind. Was 
that not so? 

(Miss Farmer is the person who started 
that place and who has charge of it and has 
gotten all the fine speakers there, etc., and 
she is considered a very advanced spirit. Do 
you think it was she?) 

Yes, it was she whom I saw. 

(You know she was not a special friend of 
mine, though I know her.) 

But I saw another lady, but I saw another 
lady with you — 

(Well, General, wait a minute, wait a min- 
ute. How did you know her name was 
Sarah?) 

I heard several ladies in a large room one 



i 5 6 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

— you would call it evening again — calling 

— one spoke to her very intimately and called 
her Sarah, and I was within — I was perhaps 

— let me see — where is your hand? 

[The psychic takes my hand and holds it 
about a foot from my face.] 

I was within that distance, the distance that 
your hand is from your face, from her, when 
the name was called, and we can hear, and 
we can see and understand names as they are 
spoken in the body if we are attracted to any 
one individually. 

(I see.) 

And oftentimes the names, if we are in- 
terested, register themselves upon our mem- 
ories and we never forget them. But to go 
back to this evening. Then you got in, didn't 
you — 

(Yes.) 

— all right, but that was the time when I 
saw you very clearly. 

(Yes.) 

[All the incidents referred to in the pre- 
ceding conversation about Greenacre are al- 
most literally true, though I am aware that 
some of them are simply things which one 
would naturally do during a summer outing. 
The sleep in the hammock, however, was an 
unusual one, and I have rarely, if ever, had 
one just like it. The fact is that I dislike the 
motion of a swinging hammock and seldom 



REPORTS OF SITTINGS 157 

lie in one. The evening in question was one 
of those still, balmy evenings when it seems 
a sin to sleep under other canopy than the 
starry blue. I do not remember the moon, 
think there was none, or not until very late. 
I found an empty hammock a few rods from 
the Inn and appropriated it. I remember 
thinking how delightful it was to lie there fac- 
ing the stars, entirely free from contact with 
the earth, a part of the atmosphere around 
me. I believe I even felt that I had been in 
error all my life thus far in not overcoming 
my dislike to the motion of a hammock. I 
fell easily into a sleep which must have been a 
deep one, and woke surprised to find from the 
general appearance of the Inn that it was 
late. I spoke with a gentleman who was pass- 
ing, and as I remember I addressed him first. 
We went on the veranda, where there was one 
other person, and found that the Inn was 
closed for the night and we were locked out. 
Fortunately a parlor window was easily 
opened and then the door unlocked from the 
inside. I do not remember that I did, and 
think I did not, dream anything in the sleep 
which I could afterwards recall. I seldom 
heard Miss Farmer called Sarah, though that 
is her name. I was not specially with her, 
but probably spoke with her once or twice 
during my stay. I remember going to Green- 
acre one summer several years before the Gen- 



i 5 8 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

eral passed away, returning and telling him 
about the place. That he ever heard Miss 
Farmer's Christian name spoken is very doubt- 
ful. He knew very little about her when liv- 
ing.] 

(Now, General, why can't I learn to go out 
that way in sleep at will, almost?) 

Well, it sometimes is not wise, sometimes 
it is not healthful, and it rests with the divine 
power as to when those conditions are suita- 
ble. Perhaps you can better understand that. 
I have learned a great deal about the condi- 
tions since I have been here, and it has been 
my one thought to study into the conditions 
and understand them for your sake, that I 
might be able to help you. I now see what 
a clear beautiful mind you had and why you 
were so interested in things which seemed to 
me rather absurd. 

(Well, I am glad to hear you say that. All 
things come to him who waits.) 

Yes, that is very true, but in the material 
life, in the mortal life, it seemed that I was 
unable with my peculiar make-up to grasp any- 
thing which I could not see. 

(Yes.) 

Therefore perhaps you will excuse me for 
not accepting your theories, but I lived to learn 
and understand for myself. It was a happy 
day when I came. The awakening was some- 
thing beyond description. I never can tell 



REPORTS OF SITTINGS 159 

you how I felt when I woke, and as my spirit 
passed up from that imprisoning body, through 
the cool ether, and the ethereal veil parted 
and my spirit passed through it into this beau- 
tiful world, the sensation and the light [de- 
light] of it all is beyond my power to ex- 
plain, and could I explain it in earthly words 
your mind could not really grasp it or under- 
stand it. 

(Yes. General, you say that you could not 
accept things unless you could see them, but I 
thought you had a very fine and highly de- 
veloped spirit, otherwise you would not have 
gone so quickly into the right conditions there 
and understood how to come back here, and be 
taken in by Imperator and Rector, etc., would 
you?) 

You realized, I think, that my desire was 
for the advancement of mind, and you remem- 
ber how I used to love poetry, and that I had 
a vein of sentiment, as you used to express it. 
Well, all that is fine spiritual perception; and 
it is really beautiful to me, now when I realize 
that I possessed that at all when in the physi- 
cal body, and it has been a great benefactor 
to me in this life. You understand what I 
mean. 

(Yes.) 

It has been a great help, a great help to 
me, the mere fact of my growing in spirit in 
the body, and I really loved the beautiful. 



160 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

(General, don't you remember how a beau- 
tiful woman used to impress you? Wait a 
moment — a friend of yours said once, old 
Mr. Clapp, that he did not know any man 
who took in the soul of a beautiful woman 
any more quickly than you did. We laughed 
over it, but I knew it was so.) 

You understood it? 

(Yes.) 

Well, that is very beautiful, very kind in 
him to have said it. But I really think that 
I do, and know now that I did, I know that I 
understood women and the beautiful side as 
few men did in my environment or among 
my associates. And all those things appealed 
to me, and it was that that was highest and 
best. All that appealed to me most. And I 
was very happy in my earthly life in a way. 
I loved life for what life gave, and I loved the 
pleasures, and I loved the physical and all 
that the physical gave, but still I was large 
enough in heart, I feel, and in spirit not to 
allow the physical temptations to drown my 
soul. 

(Yes.). 

[This is a very good characterization of 
himself.] 

(I am of course very greatly blessed and 
privileged to have your continued friendship 



REPORTS OF SITTINGS 161 

and to be allowed to come here and talk with 
you.) 

Well, there are so many restrictions. This 
great spirit, this man here who leads, he is 
the noblest spirit I know, and there are so 
many restrictions, — he understands the condi- 
tions so well, and he has his everlasting eye 
open watching constantly that no harm shall 
befall anything or anybody connected or as- 
sociated with the Light or the spiritual influ- 
ences who work through it. Why, it is really 
marvelous. 

(You mean Imperator?) 

Yes. He is not present at the moment be- 
cause he is away on a mission, but all those 
whom he does call, remember, really are priv- 
ileged. 

[See note at opening of this sitting.] 

(Yes, indeed, they are. Now I want to 
ask you to watch, and if you think you are not 
going to have any more opportunities to come 
to me through this Light, then I want you 
to get one final chance if possible and tell me 
that you cannot come more. Will you try 
to do so?) 

Will you repeat that once more for me? 
You mean that I must return here — and tell 
you before — 

[Think I replied yes.] 

Oh, yes, — well, I am going to tell you 
something. We call them the saints; they 



1 62 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

told me before I came here, before I asked 
them if I might speak with you, they told me 
that — the leader, the head spirit — he said 
that the conditions were low, but he said: 
" I will not go into explanation, but abide by 
what I say; the conditions are such that I 
must exert all my influence and power to hold 
the conditions in a sufficient state of clearness 
to enable you to return to your friends on the 
earthly side at all." Do you hear? 

(Yes.) 

And he also said : " By so doing, by doing 
this, you will be enabled to return through the 
Light occasionally for an unrestricted time — " 

(Well, well, well, that is beautiful.) 

— " and only under those conditions will 
you be permitted to return at all through the 
present Light." Therefore he has taken up 
the Light and is specially administering unto 
it to keep it for those who really need light 
and help. Do you understand? 

(Yes.) 

Well, if you do not perhaps Rector could 
make it clearer to you. 

(I do.) 

This was a private conversation between 
Imperator and myself, and he notified all the 
communicators who return through this Light 
of the conditions, and were it not for him and 
his wonderful power I perhaps should not be 
able to return, but so grateful are we to him 



REPORTS OF SITTINGS 163 

that we offer up our blessings daily and al- 
most hourly to him for his guidance and help. 
I wish you could see him. 

[A few brief sentences only omitted here.] 

I know one thing, I know that they all on 
our side can see and have predicted the ab- 
sence of the Light on the other side of the 
water. 

[It must be remembered that it was after 
the date of this sitting that Dr. Hodgson 
passed out. Mrs. Piper spent the winter of 
1906-7 abroad.] 

[In speaking of a prediction made concern- 
ing myself he says:] 

Perhaps you had better ask Rector about 
that, as he is very clear and understands that 
very well; or, better still, George Pelham. 
Perhaps you know him ? He has been a great 
help to me, a great help to me; although he 
is not so near the earth and the conditions 
surrounding the Light as I am at the present 
time, he really is a great help. 

(Is he in another sphere, so called?) 

Yes, he is in the last sphere, what you would 
speak of as heaven ; the last, seventh sphere. 

(What sphere are you in?) 

I am in the third now. We have to pass 
through the third sphere in order to return, 
one might say, and therefore I could not re- 
turn immediately directly I passed out of my 
body. 



1 64 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

(Oh, that is the reason, is it?) 

Yes. It is just like going from one room 
to another. [Illustrated by change of loca- 
tion in the material world] We advance 
until we feel that we have perfected ourselves 
according to God's will and idea, and then we 
are satisfied with ourselves, and not until we 
have. 

(Well, when you first passed out did you go 
into the first sphere, or do you call this the 
first sphere where I am?) 

Entering the material life is one sphere of 
life; that is the first, because life comes with 
the creation of the mortal body; life comes, 
it is the breath of God, and you are a branch 
of His great tree, you understand, and then 
the spirit grows, advances. Sometimes it does 
not advance in the mortal because it is ham- 
pered by physical ill, etc. If not, it is re- 
moved after a time and enters our life and 
then begins to develop and grow. 

(Well then do you think every one leaves 
here just when it is right for him to go, 
whether he is young or old?) 

Yes, yes, yes, that is all in the hands of God, 
and although we never see God — I have 
never seen Him and never hope to — He rules 
us all and reigns over us all, and we are a 
part, a branch of Him, and your question will 
make that clear to me. 



REPORTS OF SITTINGS 165 

(When any one dies, as we call it, whether 
he is thirty or eighty years old, it is the right 
time for him, do you think, or is death merely 
an accident, the time of death?) 

Oh, it is not an accident. It is ordained by 
God. I could not understand when I was in 
the body why certain things [happened], why 
certain deaths took place, and so on, but God 
knows what their lives are and what they are 
to be should they live. Therefore He re- 
moves them perhaps through disaster, perhaps 
through accident, perhaps through fire, per- 
haps through loss of a vessel, and all that 
sort of thing, and He removes many at a time. 
But every spirit that enters this life, there is 
a home prepared for it and a place prepared 
for it. Perhaps you know that in the earthly 
Bible, the material Bible, " In my Father's 
house there are many mansions;" do you re- 
member that? 

(Yes.) 

That has a literal meaning. . . . The 
spirit really never suffers, never knows a mo- 
ment's pain or anguish of any kind. I know 
this from the — pure experience and study. 

(But, General, you are not always, you over 
there, perfectly developed, and does not your 
happiness depend on your inner development 
there as it does here, your degree of happi- 
ness?) 



1 66 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

Well, yes, to an extent, but we never suffer 
as suffering is expressed and understood by 
you. 

(Yes, I see, I see. How about age there? 
How old are you compared with Imperator? 
What is the standard of measurement?) 

Well, Imperator is — in fact, no spirit is 
ever old, there is no such thing as age with us. 
We enter this life according to our acts in the 
mortal life. If we have advanced and grown 
we have gained so much when entering this 
life, but if we are hampered by physical ills 
or physical infirmities, or perhaps some may 
inherit imbecility or something of that kind, 
when the spirit leaves the body it enters this 
life and grows, in a sense, as a child. It rests, 
it is released. The moment it is released from 
its body it assumes a condition of happiness, 
as it were. There is a peacefulness about it 
that permeates the whole spirit, and a certain 
power of understanding, and then it advances 
and grows until we are — we might put the 
age, for your understanding, to fifty, and we 
are never older than that in spirit. 

(You mean never older than about what 
we think of as fifty?) 

Yes. The body grows old simply but the 
spirit never grows old. The spirit remains 
young and beautiful always. No matter 
whether the man has passed from the earthly 
life through senile decay or through accident 



REPORTS OF SITTINGS 167 

in youth, that makes no difference; the spirit 
is young always. But the conditions of the 
spirit and its happiness does [do] depend 
somewhat upon his advancement and growth 
and understanding and desires of right and 
wrong in the physical life. 

(Well, supposing I have a friend now who 
goes over there, who did not think much of 
spiritual development here, could he be where 
he could see and talk with you, for instance, 
or would he be in a lower plane?) 

Well, he would be — for your understand- 
ing — he would be in a somewhat lower plane 
upon entering this life, but if he has a great 
desire to reach me there are certain conditions 
through which he must pass in order for that 
desire to be accomplished, and if he lives ac- 
cording to the restriction and the laws which 
are mapped out for him here, then he might 
be able to see me in what you might term a 
few days. Then his desire would be fulfilled 
and he would be made happier in consequence. 

(Now, General — ) 

Yes, I hear every word you say, and you 
have the faculty of speaking slowly and dis- 
tinctly. 

(Yes. When you went away, before your 
body was put in the earth, I was called by 
the Light known as Mrs. S. I went there 
after your body was put away, but she told 
me — that is, her control, her spirit guide told 



1 68 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

me — that the day you died — you passed out 
in the morning of our day here, and she said 
that you might have been around that day but 
she was so busy she did not notice you, but 
at night you were there and you had on 
such an anxious face that she had to listen 
to you, and you kept saying, " Send for Anne, 
send for Anne." Then when I went a few 
days later and talked with her she talked as 
if you were really there. Well, she said of 
course you did not put it in words, but she 
expressed the feeling. Now do you know 
anything at all about that, or were you around, 
or could you have been around, or could you 
have called me in that way ? This is a Light 
to whom you went once with me when in the 
physical body.) 

[The psychic known as Mrs. S. sent for me 
as explained above, asking if I would like a 
sitting, feeling that she ought to comply with 
the request of her control, though she had 
never before offered me a sitting simply because 
her control desired it, and never has since. Al- 
though she had seen in the papers an an- 
nouncement of the death of my friend, she 
assured me that up to that time she did not 
know that I had been associated with him in 
business, having the impression that my spe- 
cial work was to assist Dr. Hodgson. On the 
occasion when the General accompanied me 



REPORTS OF SITTINGS 169 

to a sitting with her, several years before his 
death, she was not told who he was and was 
not acquainted with him.] 

Well, I remember after leaving my body, 
the first thing I thought of after leaving the 
body, after passing through this ether which 
I described and beyond the veil — that is, on 
our side of the veil, into this world — the first 
thing I thought of was, " Where is Anne? I 
will go and find her." I turned immediately 
and looked back into the physical world, into 
the material world, looked at the physical 
body, saw it like so much earth, and I saw 
you terribly distressed, as it seemed to me, and 
your spirit seemed very downcast and de- 
pressed, and I tried to reach you and was very 
anxious to do so and very anxious to make 
myself understood by you, and if she saw me 
she was probably true in saying it, because 
that was the first thing I remember of doing; 
and the first thought that crossed my mind 
was, " I will go and find Anne wherever she 
may be and tell her that I am still living and 
going on into the eternal life." Therefore I 
cannot contradict or disclaim her veracity. 

[It was not his habit to call me " Anne " 
when living, though it is the habit of returning 
spirits to call their friends by their Christian 
names.] 

(Now will you come to me as well as you 



I70 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

can whenever I go to see her, and do you think 
it would be well for me to go there occa- 
sionally?) 

Yes, once in a while, but I have learned 
from Imperator, who knows all there is to 
know and prepares his messengers to give such 
light as he deems that they are fitted to give, — 
he says too frequent communication on our 
side is not wise, and it is wiser for the spirit 
to store up its knowledge and learn all the 
conditions of its life and then return occa- 
sionally, imparting that knowledge to his 
friend on the earthly side occasionally, but not 
too frequently, as the spirit loses by too 
frequent communication. 

(I see.) 

And it is not well for his best development. 

[I tell him something about his old home.] 

(I am going out there the evening preceding 
the fourth Sabbath from now, if I can. I am 
going to listen to the sound of your voice 
through the phonograph — ) 

A speech? 

(Yes. Do you remember the phono- 
graph?) 

Yes, I do. 

(There were some of your talks preserved. 
There was the remarks of Colonel Ingersoll 
at the burial of his brother, there was George 
Eliot's " Choir Invisible," there was Bryant's 



REPORTS OF SITTINGS 171 

" Flood of Years." Now I am going to 
listen to that for the first time since you went 
away, and I want you to stand right beside me 
all the time, and then when I come here again 
you can tell me about it.) 

I shall be delighted. That will give me 
greater happiness than anything you could ask 
me. 

[Unfortunately the phonograph was out of 
order when I made my visit.] 

(Can you stay a while longer?) 

Yes, I am listening. 

[There is a little talk here about a sister in 
the body.] 

You have a sister here in this world whom 
I have met. 

(What is her name, do you know?) 

No, — Hiram knows; at the moment I 
could not tell you, but he knows, and perhaps 
Rector will tell you what her name is. I re- 
member I was introduced to her some time 
ago, and she is a beautiful spirit. 

[This refers to an older sister, named 
Laura, who died in 1881, thirteen years 
before I became acquainted with my com- 
municator.] 

Then I have met your father. He was a 
peculiar man, wasn't he? 

[Brief talk about my own family] 

I like your father. He is a very strong 



172 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

individuality, and he made his mistakes like 
other men in the earthly world, but he is a 
true spirit and he loves you all dearly. 

[My father was " peculiar," a " strong in- 
dividuality," and " made mistakes." He 
passed out four years before I knew my com- 
municator.] 

(Was your mother your guiding spirit all 
through your life here?) 

Yes, and a dear one she was. 

(Did you recognize her as soon as you saw 
her?) 

She helped me, she showed me the way, she 
stood at my chair, the chair I used to sit in, 
she stood beside mc when I passed out. 

(Does she know me?) 

Yes, you may rest assured that if I have 
had anything to do about it she does know 
you. 

[In speaking of my private work, I say:] 
(You must not get discouraged if I get dis- 
couraged, will you?) 

Not at all. That is not like me, is it? 
Didn't I have courage to the last? Ask me 
all you wish. My thoughts keep clear, as 
you ask your questions so clearly and beauti- 
fully that they are not confusing to me. If 
you were to say, " Now, General, I want you 
to find a name for me, get it now if you can," 



REPORTS OF SITTINGS 173 

— in searching for that name, or switching 
my thoughts from the track on which they are 
flowing at the present time, over which they 
are flowing, it would confuse me so that I 
should lose the whole thread of my individ- 
uality and thought. 

The moment I entered this life I was told 
by Imperator: "You have just opened your 
life and your life is in the beginning. You 
have much to do with a friend whom you have 
in a sense left behind." . . . Then it 
dawned upon me what he meant. I said: 
" I know what you mean ; you refer to the 
actual truth of a vague idea ; it is going to be a 
reality," — an idea which crossed my mind be- 
fore my illness. It passed through my mind, 
the thought, before my illness, as I loved 
poetry, reading books, like yourself, every- 
thing, — it crossed my mind many times, and 
the desire that I might be qualified to write. 
When I entered this life Imperator pointed 
those things out to me. He made it clear to 
me that it was possible for me to return and 
help you and that we might do this thing 
together. 

Now of course I cannot say how long the 
Light will remain in the body, or what the 
conditions are surrounding the Light, but I do 
know this, that conjointly and together on 



i 7 4 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

earth they have prayed and are praying and 
giving peace and restriction to the Light for 
a few who are privileged to use it and receive 
messages through it. Therefore I am one 
who is privileged, for which I am most 
grateful. 

(Of course I do not want this wholly for 
my selfish pleasure. I want it to be of some use 
to the world, my coming here to see you.) 

It should be, and if others would think like- 
wise there would not be such a vague mystery 
about it all, as I used to think when I was in 
the body; there was a vague sort of unknow- 
able mystery. 

(The time is passing. I must not keep you 
too long.) 

I must not remain too long, but Rector 
stands here ready to take me away, to assist 
me out, that no harm may befall the instru- 
ment through which I work. 

Tell me about little Augustus. 
(Augustus? Which one?) 
I mean the little fellow, the one they called 
— it is not really his name. 

(Oh he is all right, very pretty.) 

But they call me now and I must go. I 
must not abuse my privileges. God bless you 
and be with you. 



REPORTS OF SITTINGS 175 

(Good-bye.) 

You know I am Martin ? 

(Oh, yes!) 

Close 

SITTING OF MARCH 1 3, I905 

[There is very little that can be quoted 
from this sitting. It is a mixture of advice, 
prophecy, encouragement and reproof, on the 
part of both Rector and my communicator, 
relating to the carrying on of my work and to 
my condition of mind generally. Some of 
the remarks of my communicator are, how- 
ever, so characteristically vigorous that I 
cannot refrain from giving a few of them as 
disconnected extracts.] 

The General 

Well, well, well! Will wonders ever 
cease ! Is that you ? 

(Why, yes, don't you know me?) 
Well, I guess I do. 
(Is this you, General?) 
Yes, that is right. 

I seem sometimes to see your fits of dis- 
couragement. 

(Yes.) 

I do not like it. I passed through life, I 
think, with a brave and a stout heart. Many 



176 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

disappointments and trials came to my life, 
but I never relinquished my hold, the hold 
upon my faith and trust and hope, all through 
my life, did I? 

(No, I think not.) 

[He had a faith of some kind, which 
carried him through to the very end without 
complaint.] 



Now I called upon these helpers and these 
holy fathers to bring you here that we might 
clear up some of these little cobwebs in your 
brain. 

(Well, clear them up, I wish you would.) 

I dislike the sort of discontented thoughts. 
I dislike the feeling that there is no time, and 
a waste of energy, a waste of life, a waste of 
material, a waste of everything. Now that is 
not true at all. 

I thought you were an idiot, in a sense, be- 
cause you believed in the eternal life, but how 
dense my mind was, how weak, how unchari- 
table! But you will forgive me, you do for- 
give me? 

(Yes.) 

You understand, but it was you that were 
wise and I was weak, yet I was your friend. 

(I know that, General.) 



REPORTS OF SITTINGS 177 

I am your friend to-day. I look the same, 
and if your spiritual eyes could be opened you 
would see me standing here registering my 
thoughts through the ether with which this 
receptacle is filled. 

I can't have any thoughts of discourage- 
ment. Life is too serious, it is too beautiful, 
too strong, too great a thing to allow the 
thoughts of discouragement to enter such a 
brain as yours. I am astonished! I am 
astonished! "Oh," I said, "if I only get 
hold of her again I shall picture life as it really 
is and not as she thinks." What do you sup- 
pose you were created for? What do you 
suppose you were put into the earthly life for? 
You have not half carried out your mission. 
It is only in the beginning, and it is a useless 
waste of thought for you to think otherwise. 
Are you going to profit by what I am telling 
you? 

(Yes, indeed.) 

I don't know whether I was a good 
preacher or not, but however, I know one 
thing, you usually profited by my advice, and 
I think you will do it now. In any case I 
shall watch you and I shall reach you now by 
sending you a message and you will know how 
things are turning. 



178 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

[In omitted portion he speaks of his 
intention of sending a message occasionally 
" through that gentleman that comes here," 
meaning, of course, Dr. Hodgson.] 

Why, the idea of a . . . physically 
well woman of your years and experience 
getting into such a state of mind! Why, it is 
dreadful, and if there was no charity in the 
world there would be no love, and if there was 
no love there would be no life, do you 
know that ? And without — do you remem- 
ber somewhere in the book we used to call the 
Bible it says unless ye have charity? 

(Yes.) 

Can you quote it? 

("Unless ye have charity ye shall be as 
sounding brass and tinkling cymbals," I 
think.) 

Yes, now register that in your mind. 

(Do you suppose you will be able to come 
here again this season?) 

Oh, yes, I think so. The time, I don't know 
about that. You will have to ask them, and 
they will give you some definite idea. That 
is not in my hands. I only know that when 
the Light is burning and I see the Light, and 
the ether from our world is sufficiently clear, I 
know I can enter it and speak with you, which 
is a perfect delight. That makes our life on 



REPORTS OF SITTINGS 179 

this side complete and perfect. You under- 
stand that. Now I want you to talk to me, 
but I did feel, oh if I could only reach you 
once more. 

(Yes. Wait a minute. You know that 
the time has got to be short this morning, 
don't you?) 

Short? What do you mean? 

(Why, we can only have about half the time 
that we usually have, because the Light has 
not been in a good condition in the physical, 
and — is Rector there by you?) 

Yes, what shall I say to him ? You 
can see that the hands are always going out 
to us in touch. We are never left alone, 
I am never left alone when I am speaking 
with you. Imperator comes and goes, keeps 
coming and going, to see that all is going on 
well, and Rector or Prudens , some of them 
stand here and watch me to see how I get 
along, and if I fail for words or light they 
supply it. It comes over a line. Say what 
you want to. I think it is a pity to have you 
distressed about the time, but I don't know 
about these conditions so much, about the 
earthly side, but you will have to ask them, I 
think. 

(Well, now I have been ordered to tell 
Rector that three-quarters of the time has gone 
and he will have only sixteen minutes more 



i8o BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

and then I shall have to leave, and if I do not 
I will not be allowed to come again. Do you 
understand that?) 

You mean to say that I must go now ? 

(No, but I want you to tell Rector, who is 
there, just what I have said, will you?) 

I will speak to him — just one minute. 

[Very brief pause. Evidently speaking to 
Rector. Lips moving slightly.] 

Well, what do you think he says? 

(I don't know.) 

Why, he says he does not see how he can 
open and close the Light in so short a time as 
that. 

[I explain a little further the necessity for 
being brief, and there is a little more talk.] 

(Well now, General, I am afraid you will 
have to go.) 

[Still more talk] 

(Now you will have to go, you will have to 
go,— good-bye.) 

Don't say good-bye to me! I am going 
out and I will stand aside right here. 

[Rector returns for a few moments.] 

Close 

SITTING OF APRIL 1 9, 1905 

[This sitting was largely taken up with 
matters pertaining to my own family, one 
member of my family being very ill at the 



REPORTS OF SITTINGS 181 

time. I had clear communications from my 
father and from my sister Laura, mentioned 
in sitting of Dec. 20, 1904. It seemed to me 
that Laura, for the first and only time, spoke 
directly through the machine, so called, — that 
is, spoke directly to Rector, who repeated her 
words. For she seemed surprised at the ease 
with which communication could be carried on, 
and said: "I want to tell you how clear I 
am, and what a perfectly clear line I am work- 
ing over. I can see so much better than I 
ever did before." Upon this Rector imme- 
diately interjected the following remark: " I 
am going to say this, that I have never, I 
think, seen the Light clearer than it is this 
day." When I addressed my sister saying: 
"Now, Laura," she interrupted with: "I 
hear your voice like a trumpet." When I 
asked her to take a message to my father, she 
said: "I don't know, — if I could turn 
round and go out just a little distance on this 
cord I could bring him here. I will go and 
see." And then my father himself seemed to 
speak a few words directly. Other communi- 
cators were somewhat crowded out by relatives 
on this occasion.] 

The General 

[In speaking about my coming summer 
vacation, I say:] 

(How about Poland Spring?) 



1 82 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

Oh! [apparently laughing] Well, could 
you go there? 

(I could go there for a short time. I think 
I will try and arrange to go to Greenacre a 
short time and then go to your old stamping 
ground, Poland Spring, where the water is, 
and the woods.) 

And the Poland Spring House, you re- 
member? 

(Yes.) 

Oh, I know so well. These old haunts last 
in my memory even in the spiritual world. 
The only thing I regret is the absolute im- 
becility on my part of the truth of an eternal 
life, but sometimes we have not the keenest 
spiritual perception into the higher things 
while in the mortal body, especially when the 
mind is troubled and disturbed with all that the 
earthly world places before us, and while life 
[lasts] we have not the time, perhaps, or the 
keen appreciation, and I may say apprehension, 
of the possibilities of the future. Therefore I 
made my mistakes in that line, — not exactly 
mistakes, but I lost a great deal. 

(Yes.) 

But my life was a busy one, as you know. 
Tell me about — how is little Gus, and 
Everett, and the children and all? They are 
doing splendidly, aren't they? 

(Well, I think they are.) 



REPORTS OF SITTINGS 183 

(Do you think I will not be able to come 
again this season?) 

Well, I am not so sure. They said: 
" Now if you want to talk with your friend 
again we shall give you the privilege of doing 
it and the opportunity will present itself imme- 
diately," and then they said: "We will ap- 
point the third day," and so on, and then they 
made it known to somebody in the body, and 
they said: "Because we cannot at the 
moment see the probability of it again." But 
if it is possible and you are called for, you 
know you have got to come. 

(I gave up a good deal this time to come.) 

Yes, I know, but it could not be avoided, 
and it was better so, as you can see. And 
haven't you found them very clear to-day? 

(Yes, very.) 

And I myself, the only thing I regret is that 
I have to cease to speak. . . . Now I am 
going. I am not going to say good-bye, be- 
cause I hate the word. 

Close 

SITTING OF JUNE 21, 1905 

What is life is love, and what is love is life, 
and what is life and love is spirit. I have 
called you here again. I have felt that I 
could not allow the Light to close without 



1 84 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

meeting you once more. . . . You have 
freed me, did you know it? Nothing on the 
earthly side hampers or troubles me in the 
least. I am as free as it is possible for a spirit 
to be. 

Your father sends a great deal of love to 
you, and also your sister. She is so much 
freer since the last conversation with you here 
that she is the happiest girl you ever saw. 
You have helped them greatly by coming 
here. You have no idea of the relief to the 
spirit these communications give. 

(Give my love to them both.) 

I understand that they are going to make 
better conditions after they return. 

[" They " means the spirits in charge. 
" After they return " means after the vaca- 
tion season.] 

I understand that Imperator has made 
special arrangements — do you know what 
they call an hour? 

(Yes.) 

They are going to prolong it an hour and a 
quarter at the very least, and they are going 
to make the earthly friend sign to their ar- 
rangements — 

[" Earthly friend " is the expression which 
was commonly used by the trance personalities 



REPORTS OF SITTINGS 185 

In referring specifically to Dr. Hodgson.] 

— because right in the middle of conversa- 
tion, sometimes when the best sentiments are 
to be given, the Light is shut off, and this is 
not quite right. I lose the counts of time, 
only that the man who has charge — 

(Hodgson?) 

— Hodgson, he keeps talking about hours 
and fifteen minutes, hours and three-quarters, 
and so on, and that keeps it fresh in the mem- 
ories of the controls. 

(Tell Rector that there are fifteen minutes 
— the rule. ) 

Who says that? 

(Hodgson says that.) 

[Meaning that I had been directed to bring 
the sitting to a close at a certain time.] 

Does he? Well, he is a good fellow. He 
receives much help. I will tell you a secret — 
he is inclined to be jealous, a little bit hostile 
if he cannot have his way, but they manage 
him over here beautifully. He knows that 
whatever they say is right and he must obey, if 
we return. Do you know that I feel some- 
times it is possible that we may not get at this 
Light, and then what shall we do? Impera- 
tor has been trying to make rules and regula- 
tions that when the Light is dim and unsatis- 
factory he will only see those who really de- 
serve and let the testing go, fearing that the 



186 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

Light may give way entirely. But at the 
present time through his prayers he has kept 
it very well and done well. Does not that 
in itself show the power of spirit? 

Close 



SITTING OF DECEMBER 20, 1905 
The General 

Well, are you really here again? I see, I 
hear, I understand. Your spirit looks clearer 
to me. Are you not happier? 

(This is the General, is it not?) 

Yes, and no one else. 

( I want you to understand, and Rector and 
all of them, that I fully and most thoroughly 
appreciate the privilege of coming here to 
see you.) 

Divine Providence governeth all things 
well, and as I must say, in harmony with these 
good friends here, that if you have faith and 
trust, all things are mapped out for good and 
will be seen by yourself as being managed by 
the Unseen, in the main. 

(Yes.) 

You understand? 

(Yes.) 

And what is God's will, will be done. 



REPORTS OF SITTINGS 187 

Therefore your coming here is a privilege to 
us as well as to yourself, and it is in obedience 
to His will. 

[" Obedience," stumblingly, first, then 
" obeyance " or "abeyance "] 

(Yes.) 

How can we manage it otherwise? What 
can we do when you are summoned ? 

(You may be sure I shall be on hand.) 

And the way will be opened for you. Let 
me speak on, because we are limited on our 
Light. That is, the power gives out. . . . 
I am very anxious, since I have learned so 
much about this beautiful life and realize the 
truth and reality of it by having the actual ex- 
perience, that the world should through your 
hand and brain be made cognizant in part of 
the unfoldment, of the true development of 
the soul after it leaves its environment; that it 
is an active consciousness, that it is in the state 
of higher development, that it is able to reach 
the physical plane and act through such voices 
as your own, we would say, to give expression 
and utterance to the truth and reality of in 
part what this life contains. Is that clear to 
you? 

(Yes. Well, of course I cannot know 
about your life except as you give it to me.) 

But through your own unfoldment, as you 
say, you receive constantly help and impres- 
sions from me in this life. 



188 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

(Yes.) 

You cannot work alone without this help 
which you receive perhaps unconsciously to 
yourself, yet not unconsciously to — your sub- 
conscious mind receives the impressions which 
I give you and they are unfolded through the 
conscious mind. Therefore you give expres- 
sion to the very things which I impress your 
mind with. 



Tell me about the boy. 

(Well, what do you see about him?) 

[I have in mind a nephew of mine, who 
lives in California, in regard to whom I have 
had many communications, but his reply in- 
dicates that he is inquiring about his own boy, 
and I say:] 

(Do you mean my boy or yours?) 

I mean mine. ... In regard to your 
boy, he is a long distance in the earthly world, 
is he not? 

[This thought was evidently suggested by 
something which was said about his own boy 
being nearer to me.] 

And is that not his child? 

(What child?) 

Has he not a child or two? 

(He has one, or has had one.) 

Is this not his? 

(Where is it?) 



REPO.RTS OF SITTINGS 189 

Why, isn't it here? Isn't this Max's boy? 
His name is Plumb. 

[My nephew's name] 
(Well, that is his child, yes.) 

Well, I wanted to tell you about him, be- 
cause he came up to me, and as I found him I 
said, " Why, this child certainly belongs to 
my friend in the body," because he was so con- 
stantly — do you remember a spirit named 
Laura ? 

(Yes, my sister.) 

Yes, with her. 

(Well, is it my sister, or some one else 
named Laura?) 

Yes, it is another, it is somebody else, but I 
told you about her, did I not? 

(I think it must be some relation. I wish 
you could see.) 

Well, they are both here, the lady and the 
child. And the child leaving the body was a 
great disappointment to him, but it was better 
for the child and infinitely better for him and 
for the mother. 

(Why?) 

Because the developments would have been 
very painful. God knows best, and to un- 
fold His truths would take me a long time. 

(Well, we won't try now. Is that my 
grandmother who has the baby?) 

Yes, it is your sister's grandmother — that 



1 9 o BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

would be yours, of course, certainly — well, 
you know we look at the connections here. 
She is an elderly lady, an elderly lady, but in 
the spirit no one is elderly. Perhaps you can 
understand contradictory statements, if pos- 
sible. Her name was Laura. 

(Yes, that is it.) 

She is very much attached to that child. 

(Well, I have heard through another Light 
that this grandmother of mine had this child. 
Now have you seen me with that Light lately 
at all?) 

Yes, yes — [quite eagerly] — what Light 
was that? I have been trying to give you a 
password. 

(At that time?) 

Yes. You did not seem to understand it 
some way. 

[This child, a babe of nine months whom I 
had never <seen, died Sept. 25, 1905, three 
months previous to date of this sitting, no 
isitting with Mrs. Piper having taken place in 
the interim, and this is the first reference by 
her to it. On Dec. 8 of this same month, less 
than two weeks previous to date of this sitting, 
I had a sitting with the psychic known as Mrs. 
S., who told me that this child was with my 
grandmother, and that my grandmother and 
my communicator were acquaintances and 
friends. I took it to be my mother's mother, 



REPORTS OF SITTINGS 191 

as my father's mother died when I was a mere 
child. My mother's mother I knew well, as 
she did not pass away until I had grown to be 
a young woman. She was a reader of books 
on Spiritism and was much interested in the sub- 
ject, though she had few sympathizers among 
her own friends. She is the grandmother who 
would be most likely to have the child, and 
her name was Laura. 

It will be seen that when my communicator 
asks : " Do you remember a spirit named 
Laura," I immediately reply: "Yes, my 
sister," the sister being the first thought in my 
mind. This positive reply might well have 
switched my communicator's ideas off the right 
track, but when I say: " Is it my sister, or 
some one else named Laura," he replies: 
" Yes, it is another, it is somebody else, but I 
told you about her, did I not?" I do not 
know to what this " I told you about her " 
can possibly refer, unless it means that my 
communicator was actually present at my 
sitting with Mrs. S. two weeks before, and 
that he was the one who impressed it upon the 
psychic to assure me that the child was with 
my grandmother.] 

But I wanted to tell you that this little child 
is very happy and is in a home of its own with 
these people and that they are taking good 
care of it, and that there is nothing lost. 



192 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

(You tell both those Lauras that I am much 
pleased to know that the child is with them 
and will so report to the parents.) 

That is right. 

Why, spirit, spirit travels, remains con- 
scious, feels out to its friends, reaches them 
on the earthly side, but there are some things 
which its memory cannot and does not wish to 
retain. There are pages in every book of life 
which the spirit when it leaves closes that book 
in the mortal life, it would like to forget, and 
so it does. Therefore it is happier. 

(General, are you in a sort of zone around 
the atmosphere of this earth, and can you go 
to other planets and stars if you wish?) 

Yes, certainly, and now there is a case here 
which has been very peculiar and perhaps has 
been commented upon in the mortal body — 
doubtless it has, because I have seen this man 
struggling here and then I have seen him de- 
part suddenly. He would come to the Light 
and the Light would not be open, and he 
would take his departure and go way off to 
another country. His name is Myers, or 
Myer. 

[I think my communicator in life knew 
nothing about F. W. H. Myers, of England, 
who died in 1901, the year preceding that in 
which my communicator died.] 

And he comes here, he finds the Light un- 



REPORTS OF SITTINGS 193 

open — a very active, brilliant, fine man, keen 
perceptions, finest type of mind — and he 
comes here, he finds the Light not burning, he 
departs, he goes and looks after his family — 
he has a family in the mortal body — he goes 
to find them and remains with them, and often- 
times when the Light is burning he fails to ap- 
pear, but you can understand that because of 
his absence from the Light and being among 
those he loves. 

(Well, does he go to other worlds?) 

He goes to other worlds and other planets. 
He is constantly studying — he is a great 
student — he is studying the conditions and 
the changes and the whys and the wherefores 
of communication, and the laws of life in the 
spirit, in the body, and the ways of God and 
the ways of man and spirit in general. 

(Now I am afraid you will have to go.) 

Shall I have to go ? — 

(Tell Rector—) 

— but with you I shall be — 
(Tell Rector—) 

— the way will be open when I can return 
again soon and finish my conversation, for I 
have much to tell you which I cannot utter 
to-day. 

Close 

Note. This sitting took place on the morn- 
ing of the day on which Richard Hodgson 



194 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

died. His death occurred in the late after- 
noon or early evening. 

SITTING OF' APRIL 1 7, 1906 

[This sitting- took place in my own private 
room, near Copley square, Boston. The 
" earthly friend " means Dr. Hodgson.] 

The General 

Hello, hello, hello! Well, well, well! 
What have you got to say to me ? 

(Who is this?) 

Well, well, well! Hello, Anne! Where 
did you come from? Where did you come 
from? I should like to know where we are, 
where you are, where we all are, where I am. 
Well, well, well! I am the General. Oh, 
dear! Oh, dear! And you did not know me, 
did you? Well, I never thought the time 
would come when you would not know me. 

(Well, wait a minute, General.) 

What are you doing, writing? 

(Yes.) 

Oh, I see. Well, well, well you were al- 
ways writing. Were you ever doing anything 
else? 

(Now, General — ) 

Yes, yes! 

Tell me not in mournful numbers, 
Life is but an empty dream, 



REPORTS OF SITTINGS 195 

And the soul is dead that slumbers, 
And things are not what they seem. 
Life is real, life is earnest, 
And the grave is not its goal; 
Not enjoyment and not sorrow, 
Was not — no — 
Dust thou art, to dust returnest, 
Was not spoken of the soul. 

(You have not forgotten your poetry, have 
you?) 

No, and I never shall. 
(General — ) 

Yes? 

It matters not how straight the gate, 
How charged with punishments the scroll; 
I am master of my fate, 
I am captain of my soul. 

That is not original, but I love it. 

(Now, General, do you know you spoke so 
much like the earthly friend when you first 
came — ) 

Well, he was right beside me, and he was 
so determined that he would speak first, I was 
trying to see if I could not get him to give his 
consent to let me, without him, and he first en- 
tered and then he stepped aside and let me 
enter, and that was how that happened to be. 

(Then that is the reason I did not quite 
recognize you at first.) 

Well, I forgave you long ago. I don't lay 



i 9 6 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

that up against you. I know it is difficult be- 
cause you cannot see me. You see, being a 
spirit, I am so fine, my ethereal body is fine and 
so finely constructed and all, that you cannot 
see it with your mortal eye, but with your 
spiritual eye you could see me plainly. Are 
the children all well? Are you well? Busy? 
Busy as a bee. 

(Well, wait a moment, General. I am 
sorry I cannot talk faster — ) 

Talk and write too? Well, the body has 
its limitations, you know. 

(Yes, I guess that is so. Now you said, 
" where are we all." Now I want to know if 
you know where you are, actually are, in this 
spot this moment.) 

At the present moment? 

(Yes.) 

Well, may I look around a bit and see ? 

(Yes.) 

Well, now just give me time. 

[Fingers of hand touch my face, rest a 
moment over my own hand, then find cabinet 
size photograph of my communicator in gilt 
frame which stands on table within easy reach. 
This occupies only a minute or two. Then 
emphatically:] 

Ha! ha. You can't fool me! I am in 
your room ! That is myself, that is myself! 

(Yes.) 

I am in your room. Well, I am more 



REPORTS OF SITTINGS 197 

pleased than I can say. This is an unexpected 
pleasure and a perfect delight to me. Well, 
I must say I am happier for it. How does it 
happen ? Perhaps you need not take the time 
to explain, perhaps somebody else will do it 
for me, but I am just a little bit in a quandary 
to know how it happened. Oh, what a fool 
I was ! I did not know, I did not realize that 
I should live again, and of all things I least 
expected to return. 

(The daughters of the Light were ill, and 
so the Light has remained away from them, 
and the meetings have been in this room of 
mine for some little time past.) 

That is the reason why I was so attracted 
here that I begged Rector to arrange for me 
to speak to you. 

(I see.) 

I had all I could do to keep from inter- 
rupting each time lately. 

(Yes.) 

Well, that accounts for it. You see that 
helps me to understand. Thank you very 
much. 

[This was the first private sitting of my 
own which took place after the passing out of 
Dr. Hodgson, although I had attended many 
sittings during the winter as assistant and re- 
corder, and had been recognized by the 
Hodgson personality, for it must be under- 
stood that Dr. Hodgson purported to return 



i 9 8 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

through Mrs. Piper very soon after his death. 
That is a matter, however, which I am leaving 
for others to present. But his manner of 
salutation was something like what appears in 
the opening remarks of this sitting. In fact, 
the two personalities seem to be blended, prob- 
ably indistinguishably so to the reader to 
whom both men were strangers when in life, 
though the peculiar characteristics of each are 
quite apparent to me. The profusion of ex- 
clamatory greetings is Hodgsonian, while the 
irrepressible bursting into rythm is Mar- 
tinian.] 

Now haven't you got anything to say to me ? 
I want you to say lots of things to me. 

(You will let Hodgson come a few moments 
before — ) 

Oh, he is coming, you cannot get rid of him 
so easy. You know this is a great big tele- 
phone and I am speaking into it. 

(Explain it more, will you?) 

Yes, I will. The telephone is filled with 
ether from our world, and it is a receptacle, a 
vessel, and we blow into it just exactly as you 
would blow a bellows, the air through a 
bellows to an open fire, into an open fire, and 
then we attach a cord, an ethereal cord, to that 
and talk right over that cord right into the ma- 
chine, and make this machine utter our 
thoughts. 



REPORTS OF SITTINGS 199 

; (I see.) 

■ •••>* 

(Now, General, — ) 

Hodgson is coming! 

(Tell him to wait a moment.) 

Yes, good fellow, — I am glad to know him. 

[Dr. Hodgson and my communicator were 
not acquainted during life, though each knew 
something about the other.] 

There is a lot more I wanted to say, but I 
am afraid I won't have the strength. 

(Well, the time is very nearly up, and I 
suppose I must speak with Hodgson. At any 
rate, I want to.) 

Well, he is going to, but I am going to see 
you again sometime. ... I suppose I 
must step aside. . . . This is the most 
wonderful thing in the world to-day. 
I must step aside and let this gentleman 
speak. Good-bye. It is au revoir, not good- 
bye. 

(Good-bye, General.) 

[" This gentleman " means Dr. Hodgson, 
with whom I hold a brief conversation, which 
I have thought best not to insert] 

Subliminal 

[When Mrs. Piper is coming out of trance 
there are brief remarks and broken utterances, 



200 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

some of them very clear, some of them in a 
whisper, some of them quite indistinct and 
wholly unintelligible. The appearance is as if 
she were taking a last look at spirits standing 
near, and as if these spirits, while she is re- 
turning to her body, were impressing upon her 
mind words and messages for her to repeat 
to the sitter. Some of her broken utterances 
also indicate her returning perception of her 
surroundings in the room where the sitting has 
taken place.] 

Getting dark. They are all going away. 

[Muttering something unintelligible] 

I wonder what Martin has his hand in it — 
General Martin is — I don't know you — 

[Looking up inquiringly] 

I can't hear you — 

[Making great effort to hear] 

What? I am happier for it. She'll un- 
derstand. It is all right with me. I hope it 
is with her. 

[It will be noted that " I am happier for it " 
is the same phrase as that used by my com- 
municator through the trance, as if he were 
repeating to Mrs. Piper's returning spirit 
some of the same language used to me while 
she was unconscious of what was being trans- 
mitted through her organism.] 

Close 



REPORTS OF SITTINGS 201 

SITTING OF JUNE 6, 1906 

[Permission had been given for my sister 
Grace, Mrs. Moore, to accompany me on this 
occasion. She was present at the opening of 
the sitting and at its close.] 

The General 

(I have copies of all that you have said to 
me here, and I do not think it will all be pub- 
lished by the Society, so that leaves the coast 
clear for me to publish something in my book, 
and I propose to do that, and speak of your 
life in Boston.) 

Very good. I should like that very much 
indeed, because I do not care now. I lived 
to know the truth, to understand the truth 
and to speak the truth, and the truth will live, 
and I am not ashamed of my name or any- 
thing associated or connected with it, and the 
truth will bear its weight throughout the uni- 
verse, and I think it is better to be frank and 
open and honest with the name. 

I heard a little music in your room the other 

evening and I heard an instrument being 

played, and I sat in a large chair right near 

the table. You were apparently reclining. 

(Was somebody else making the music?) 

Yes, yes. It was your sister, I think. 



202 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

And you were reclining, and I was sitting in 
the large chair and listening. 

(That was lovely.) 

And I heard it all. And then I heard — 

( Do you want my sister to come in the room 
now?) 

I am afraid it will interrupt me. I heard 
" Old Oaken Bucket " plainly. 

(Was my sister playing that or was I?) 

You were playing it. 

(Well, that is one of my favorites.) 

Well, I don't know it at all. I know I 
heard it. I heard you play it. I caught the 
air. Then I heard her play a religious thing, 
religious piece. 

(Now, General, wait a moment. My sis- 
ter is just outside. I think I will call her in, 
but you need not speak to her unless you 
wish.) 

I am afraid it will interrupt me. I thought 
it might interrupt my thoughts. 

(When I am alone in my room I sometimes 
sit down and play a little bit, and often play 
"The Old Oaken Bucket.") 

Yes, yes, I hear that. Well, I heard that. 
Then I heard another little one that sounded 
like "The Suwanee River." 

(I did not play it.) 

No, your sister. She played a few bars of 
it. And then I heard a waltz, a waltz being 



REPORTS OF SITTINGS 203 

played. I think she has a very pretty touch, 
and I think she sings a little, doesn't she? 

(Oh, yes.) 

But why doesn't she sing? I heard her 
humming but not much singing to it. 

(Well, her throat troubles her a little now.) 

She is not well, but the spirit will improve 
the flesh. 

[I do not play much, and do not play often, 
but probably play the " Old Oaken Bucket " 
oftener than any other one piece. I did not 
play it on the evening referred to. This sit- 
ting took place on Wednesday. On the pre- 
ceding Friday evening I was in my room with 
my sister, Mrs. Moore, who was then visiting 
me, though she had not been with me for 
nearly a year prior to this visit. A friend of 
hers called, and during the evening my sister, 
who is very musical, sat down at the piano, 
I betook myself to a couch, decidedly reclin- 
ing. The friend sat in a small rocker, and 
the Morris chair, the largest chair in the room, 
which stood near the centre table, was unoc- 
cupied. My sister's playing is noted among 
her friends for its remarkably pretty touch, 
and she has a way of humming at times when 
she does not feel able to sing. As I remem- 
ber this evening she sang in a low tone at first, 
and finally sang one or two songs in her nat- 
ural manner. She tells me that she played 



20 4 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

just a few strains of the "Suwanee River" on 
the evening in question, though I did not re- 
member it and could not have told that she 
did play it.] 

Close 

SITTING OF SEPTEMBER 26, 1906 

[There is on this occasion quite a long con- 
versation with Dr. Hodgson. This and Rec- 
tor's talk occupy the larger portion of the 
hour.] 

The General 

Here I am. I am delighted to see you. 
How are you? 

(I am fine. Don't you think so?) 

Good. Isn't that splendid! Yes, I think 
you are. I never saw you better. Did you 
ask your sister about that music? 

(Yes.) 

Well, wasn't I right? 

(Yes, you were. She played the " Suwanee 
River " that night, but I did not know it.) 

Yes, and you often play the " Old Oaken 
Bucket?" 

(Yes.) 

Do you know that I am with you when your 
body is in repose and your spirit is floating 



REPORTS OF SITTINGS 205 

around conversing with me? Do you re- 
member it when you wake? What are you 
doing? Are you writing? 

(General, I have to write down every 
word. I wish I did not.) 

Why don't you split the difference and di- 
vide your mind? 

(Well, I will. It hinders me. I think I 
will drop it now.) 

I wish you would. You lose the person- 
ality. 

[Which means that I discard paper and 
pen, sit close to Mrs. Piper, and have an easy, 
natural conversation with my communicator.] 

Close 

SITTING OF AUGUST 5, 1907 

[The date of this sitting is a little out of 
season. Mrs. Piper had just returned from 
England and gave a few sittings before leav- 
ing Boston again to spend the remainder of 
the summer in the country.] 

The General 

Little rills make wider streamlets, 
Streamlets swell, the rivers grow; 

And they join the ocean billows, 
Onward, onward, as they go. 

Does that sound natural? 

(Yes. Will you say that once more?) 



206 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

[Verse repeated] 

(All right, that is natural. How do you 
do, General?) 

Well, how do you do ? I do as I'm a mind 
to most of the time. 

Do you realize that even though I go on in 
life, progressing in this life, and go step by 
step, my spirit is improving, I still look back, 
and never a step forward do I go that I do 
not look back and live in pleasant memories 
always of the old, olden days. ... I 
have enough sentiment in my nature which 
has become a part of myself and my spirit 
here that if I sound or seem sentimental you 
must overlook it, because it is a part of the 
spirit. 

(You cannot be too sentimental for me.) 
I know your nature, but I say that senti- 
ment is a part, and a finer, higher part, of the 
spiritual life and its existence. And life is love 
and love is life, and life is love, therefore it is 
universal. 

[In speaking about the mediumistic power 
of another psychic, he concludes by saying:] 

Well, ask Hodgson. He will tell you. 
He has been a great help to me over here, and 
he has been helping Myers all during the 
burning of the Light. Perhaps you don't 
know what has been going on ? 



REPORTS OF SITTINGS 207 

(Not much.) 

Well, perhaps it is just as well if you don't. 
I don't know very much about it myself, only 
I know we are very pleased on this side. 

[This doubtless refers to the work of the 
season just closed. See Proc. S.P.R. Part 
LVII, Vol. XXII, October, 1908.] 

[Toward the close of the hour my com- 
municator says:] 

But I am going to ask Hodgson what part 
of his reports he wants you to have and he 
will tell you. 
1 (The time is up.) 

I must let him come. 

(The time is up.) 

Well, he has got to speak to you, I can't 
help it. It is not good-bye, only au revoir. 

[A brief talk with Dr. Hodgson follows, 
at the close of which he says: "God bless 
you, and stick to it. That is the advice of 
your old friend R. H."] 

Close 

SITTING OF NOVEMBER 20, 1907 

[There is very little that can be quoted from 
this sitting. I held conversations with three 
communicators, and my old friend Hiram 
Hart sent a brief message of remembrance. 
More than twenty-four years have elapsed 
since he passed away. This is the occasion 



208 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

on which my communicator says that " delays 
are dangerous " and he now wishes me to push 
my work along as rapidly as possible. While 
advising and urging me, he says :] 

The General 

You are a little bit stubborn, do you know 
it? You get an idea and you want to carry 
that idea, you analyze it, you say it over in 
your mind, and you are inclined to go back to 
the first idea. Sometimes the broadest and 
most reasonable minds are willing to add an 
idea to their oldest idea, and have two ideas 
instead of one. 

(Well, I hope I am.) 

[Further on he says:] 

Imperator calls you one of his children. I 
suppose you must be. 

(I am glad to know that.) 

Well, he watches over you with his all-see- 
ing eye and does not want you to fail or fall 
into error. 

-. ■.' ■. i*i r. 

Close 

SITTING OF JUNE 1 7, 1908 
The General 

You have heard of pearly gates and streets 
of pearl? Those were as real as any ex- 



REPORTS OF SITTINGS 209 

pression which you may use in the physical 
life. More real. It is a fact, — there are 
streets of pearl, gates of pearl. 

(Just like our pearl?) 

It is similar. Yes, the comparison is so 
near that you could not mistake it for a mo- 
ment. And our castles, our homes, are real. 
They are as real to us as yours are to you. 
Yours is simply the imitation, ours is the real. 
We have streets, we have gardens, we have 
homes, we have rivers, we have lakes. If we 
bathe in the river our garments are not wet, 
but still we are purified, we are cleansed. But 
the natural hair — but entering it does not 
saturate our garments, and it does not wet 
what you call the hair. We come out and it 
is light and dry, the garments are dry, but 
the soul is purified by bathing in the waters. 
Is that clear to you? We walk about the 
lakes, we walk in the gardens, we meet friends, 
we commune with friends, we hear music, we 
hear sermons, and we pass our time glorifying 
God and living in His presence, in a sense, — 
understanding what His hand hath created 
and what He has blessed us with, eternal life. 

(When you go out of your mansion and 
look up toward what would be our sky, what 
do you see ?) 

We see above us, we see our world radiant, 
filled with light, a beautiful, soft moonlight, 
difficult for you to comprehend because it is so 



2io BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

clear, so beautiful, so light. We do not see 
what you see — stars — but we see this beau- 
tiful moonlight above us, all round us. The 
air is scented with the most delicious perfume. 
It is so exquisitely delicate that it seems almost 
a part of our own existence, it is so beautiful, 
so delicate, and so real. And we see above us 
this beautiful light, and it is what you would 
call in your world the heavens. It is above 
us, far above us, and we see at times, we see — 
a face appears. It grows lighter at times, 
especially when we are in a particularly happy 
state. The face appears over us and we know 
it is the face of Christ. We hear the swishing 
of the garment, as it were, and then it passes 
off and some one else receives the vision. 

(Do you ever see any other face like that 
in the heavens except that of Christ?) 

We see what you would call — there are 
saints administering to those who need help, 
or perhaps have just passed over, have not un- 
derstood the conditions, and these saints appear 
to give them courage and to give them faith 
and to show them that this is everlasting and 
eternal life. I am not very good at preach- 
ing. 

(Then you do not have our beautiful firma- 
ment of stars at night?) 

We have what corresponds to your stars. 
There are rays, as it were, little flickering 



REPORTS OF SITTINGS 211 

rays all through the firmament, all through the 
heavens. We see these little rays all about 
us, this beautiful figure passing, we see another 
face and then another as it passes. Why do 
we not come into closer proximity with them, 
as we say? Because they are superior even 
to ourselves, they have progressed, they have 
gone on to a higher, even, sphere than our 
own. That is, they are the controlling, the 
ruling forces, and govern our own life and 
our own world. Do you understand? 

(Yes.) 

A word of command, simply a hand is 
raised — we know its meaning, we understand 
it, we sense it as a little child would sense 
danger, or a sensitive animal would sense 
danger. 

Subliminal 

[I have not exact notes of what Mrs. Piper 
said on this occasion while coming out of 
trance, but I have a memorandum that she 
mentioned the names of nearly all my special 
friends on the Other Side, as if she were see- 
ing them: — Hiram Hart, the General, my 
sister Laura, my father, the baby, my grand- 
mother, Pickett. My grandmother holds the 
baby up and the baby sends love to its mother, 
and just then the General picked a rose and 



212 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

handed it to the baby, and the baby was pick- 
ing it to pieces. The psychic, gradually re- 
turning to consciousness, calls this one of the 
most beautiful sights she ever saw.] 



And the End is Not Yet. September, igog. 



PART III 



SUGGESTIVE THOUGHTS ON THE 
ATTAINMENT OF SPIRITUALITY 



As I have previously said, I have no System 
of Philosophy to present, and possibly nothing 
which ought to be dignified by the name of 
Philosophy at all. I have not, however, been 
able to divorce my psychical research from my 
religious feeling, nor do I see how any religion 
can be worthy of the name which does not 
enter as a continual inspiration into the daily 
life. Among the many definitions of religion 
which I have seen I like that best which makes 
it mean the right relation of mind and heart 
toward our fellow-creatures and our environ- 
ment, and the right attitude of the soul toward 
the Incomprehensible and the Unknown. It 
need have no specific name, nor is it of great 
importance that one be identified with some 
particular religious sect, but it does devolve 
upon each individual person to ascertain to the 
best of his ability what attitudes and relations 
are right, and to constantly enlighten his un- 
derstanding on these matters as he progresses 
along the pathway between birth and the 
grave. We love the man who walks in our 
midst with his head among the stars, but we 
smile a little at his lack of mental balance if 
he does not make sure that his feet are tread- 
ing solid ground. I believe we may walk on 
solid ground and at the same time lift the eye 
to the most distant star whenever we may wish. 
215 



216 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

I have ventured to offer a few ideas upon 
the varied relationships in life. If they shall 
be found to be old, that will matter little, since 
every one is privileged to appropriate from 
out the treasure-house of the Past, to recast old 
ideas into new moulds of his own thinking, 
and to nourish himself thereby. It may be 
that many of my readers will choose to pass 
by these pages altogether, yet deep down in 
my heart I am assured that among those who 
peruse them there will be found at least a few 
other hearts in which they will awaken an an- 
swering thought and a responsive feeling. 



SELF-DISCIPLINE 



The best is near, already ours, 
If we would wisely use the powers 

Of mind and heart 

And do our part. 

Complete and fair the earth will be 
For him whose inner majesty 

Crowns every sight 

With its own light. 

In any place we find the thing 

That in our hearts the power we bring 

To see and use, 

All else we lose. 

— Victor E. Southworth. 



217 



SELF-DISCIPLINE 

TO EASILY ignore one's own personality 
is an attainment that must be striven for, 
a power that must be gained, but it is after all 
a mere preparation for that which follows, a 
mere opening at the door to the Vastness which 
is outside of personality. 

DEATH of the lower means the birth of 
the higher. The suppression of a vice 
means the nourishment of a virtue. The dy- 
ing of the selfish means the living of the 
charitable. The extinction of the ignoble 
means the blossoming of nobility. 

SOUL culture certainly does not come from 
the reading of many books or from the 
forming of a large acquaintance, nor is it 
measured thereby. Yet it may depend some- 
what upon the nourishment one is able to ex- 
tract from his reading and upon the society 
of those of his acquaintance who themselves 
are cultured. 

ONE who is extremely sensitive and at the 
same time self-repressed — the first con- 
dition generally being the cause of the second 
— is the possessor of a temperament suffi- 
ciently at war with itself to cause any amount 
of mental anguish until the temperament is 
understood and the unhappiness resulting from 
219 



220 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

it is outgrown. Yet this same sensitiveness 
when once understood, when it serves and does 
not master, brings to its possessor the percep- 
tion and enjoyment of untold things which the 
person lacking it or possessing it in small de- 
gree cannot appreciate at all. Slowly in early 
life we begin to apprehend the great truth 
that as surely as the cause of our unhappiness 
lies within ourselves just so surely do we pos- 
sess the power within ourselves to remedy ills, 
to dispossess ourselves of misery and to take 
possession of bliss. 

T UNDERSTAND the philosophy of Spi- 
-■■ noza to make a distinction between neces- 
sity and external compulsion. We are of neces- 
sity, in the nature of things, bound to do cer- 
tain actions, to follow certain lines of conduct. 
That is, we need not, unless we choose, but 
we must in order to attain our highest good. 
That is all. 

THE giving up of the selfish quest for hap- 
piness so dignifies and ennobles the soul 
that one ceases to grope with downcast eyes; 
one looks up, takes the hand of God and walks 
with Him as a companion, a friend. Then 
there is work in plenty to do, for one is a 
co-worker with God. Just as a grown-up 
daughter takes the arm of her earthly father 
and walks joyously, confidingly, companion- 



SELF-DISCIPLINE 221 

ably, sharing his schemes and his outlook, yet 
recognizing all the while the superior age, the 
superior knowledge, the superior power. 

THE person who is delicately sensitive to 
spiritual influences receives impressions 
in many ways and is more or less swayed by 
them, and it is particularly desirable, indeed 
imperative, that such person should cultivate 
strength and self-control. 

MY own nature is my law. That law in 
its purest meaning must be obeyed. 

LET us never forget, in the analysis of 
self, that the great desideratum is the 
power to turn one's face immediately and 
wholly in the opposite direction from that of 
our sensations, our emotions, our personal de- 
sires; to be and to do as if they were not; to 
fling from us the encumbrance of self-analysis 
itself, and to stand erect as free, pure spirit. 

WHEN one accepts the theory that the 
haps and the mishaps in his particular 
environment take place for the purpose of de- 
veloping character in him, to understand their 
significance and their special bearing upon the 
end in view becomes a fascinating intellectual 
game. 



222 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

TO control one's nerves or be ruled by them 
— that is the question. The one thing 
leads to life, the other to death. " Self- 
stayed, serene and high," the poet says. It 
seems to be an inversion of the natural order 
of things that mere nerves should have pos- 
session of the field, frightening all else. Yet 
the nerves are like the finest magnetic needle, 
indicating the slightest change in the atmos- 
phere, the least deviation in our course. They 
should be of the greatest aid to the spirit, like 
the dainty, delicate servitors that they are. 



SELF-POISE is a marvelous thing. Its in- 
fluence ramifies through every part of 
mind and body, affecting each tiny cell. A 
new cleavage has as it were been made and 
all primal elements in the nature strike a new 
attitude toward the centre of control. 



CHECKING the "vagaries of thought," 
relaxing the tensions of the body, breath- 
ing deeply of God's pure air, ignoring the im- 
portance of the Ego, steadily pushing the 
activity of the whole being in the direction 
in which one wishes it to move, are rules which 
when followed closely and when working har- 
moniously are sufficient to introduce one into 
a new world; aye, a world so large as com- 
pared with the treadmill narrowness of a small 



SELF-DISCIPLINE 223 

life and purposeless thinking that it may well 
be called a universe. This glorified world 
awaits him who seeks. 

DESPONDENCY is an insult to the Crea- 
tor. It cripples all the faculties He has 
given. It should be rooted out of one's na- 
ture as any other vice. It should be subli- 
mated into cheer. 

THE soul will plod on in certain directions 
blindly if it must, but when the lamp of 
intelligence is lighted it walks boldly without 
wavering or fall. 

WE hear about the art of forgetting. It 
is more than an art. It is a positive es- 
sential in one's mental equipment if one would 
make progress in the spiritual life. 

THE art of forgetting one thing is the art 
of remembering another. The thing 
which we wish to forget must be supplanted 
in our minds by the definite thing upon which 
we wish to concentrate the attention. Thus 
it happens that the mastery of physical weak- 
nesses and temperamental defects and the gain 
in mental power are, after all, brought about 
by cultivation of spiritual qualities. It is only 
as spiritual qualities, positive and strong, sup- 



224 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

plant the things in ourselves which we wish 
to forget that the desideratum is attained, 
namely, the control of all our forces and the 
enjoyment of our lives. 

THE secret of working easily, without tir- 
ing, is an intelligent understanding and 
adjustment of the mutual relation of spirit, 
mind, nerve and muscle. These are all sep- 
arate and distinct things and yet they are one. 
The body should be in such a position that 
the life fluids may flow through it without ob- 
struction. No muscles should be taut except 
those required for the particular work that is 
being performed. The nerves should be 
steady, not jumping erratically because of ag- 
itation in the mind. The mental powers must 
be concentrated upon the work in hand, and 
the soul must be without rebellion. 

ONE may travel the world over in search 
of peace and never know it until he 
makes it. Let him make use of the mighty 
sceptre which God has given him and com- 
mand the elements at war within his own 
breast. 

THE downpour of water from the skies 
is essential to the life of the trees. The 
rain of sorrow in our lives must be drawn into 
our life-blood, else we too shall wither and 



SELF-DISCIPLINE 225 

perish and fail of the growth we were born 
to accomplish. Living according to the laws 
of nature we expand day by day as inevitably 
and unconsciously as do the trees. 



THAT in your temperament which you rec- 
ognize as your greatest weakness may 
become not only your greatest strength but 
the source of your greatest enjoyment, since 
by means of mastering a weakness you learn 
the law which brings to you its opposite good. 



REAL goodness is not so common a thing 
in this world. It may even be said to be 
rare. It is not a subterfuge into which one 
flees because he lacks ability or will. Rather 
is it ability and will only which can acquire 
the actual good. 



LAW prevails in the so-called lower as well 
as the higher. It is for us to choose 
whether we will live under the preponderating 
influence of laws which bring about a lesser 
degree of happiness, or under laws which 
mould us into creatures of a finer fibre, capable 
of seeing in our environment that to which 
we were formerly blind, capable of enjoying 
that which formerly conveyed no meaning to 
us. 



226 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

THE unspeakable relief which comes to a 
person who struggles with an unhappy 
temperament when one day he suddenly turns 
his back upon it all, is only to be understood 
by those who suffer the miseries of such an 
existence and into whose hearts at last the 
floods of spiritual light are poured. The in- 
stant the spirit is thus freed, light-heartedness 
springs into being at a bound, involuntarily, 
necessarily, for it is the struggle itself which 
makes the heavy heart. The joy which is the 
accompaniment of vigorous, energetic action 
then supplants the heaviness of lackadaisical, 
paralyzing struggle. 



THE Divine Will reveals to its devoted 
followers more and more of its purport 
and wisdom. Follow not the Will and you 
may become blind. 



NO one should feel that because he is 
locked in his own chamber for the hour 
he may give free play to unworthy thought 
and ignoble feeling, he may safely indulge in 
melancholy or despair. This does not mean 
that he may not occasionally be " off guard," 
as it were. If it did, privacy would contrib- 
ute little toward the recuperation of our 
powers. But when alone one may entertain 



SELF-DISCIPLINE 227 

the angel of his better self even more charm- 
ingly perhaps than when in the presence of 
others. 



T IFE may be glorious every day. The 
■*-^ spirit may wrap itself round in cloud- 
like airiness, so light, so beautiful, so pene- 
trating, that all which is ugly is softened by 
it and disappears from our view. 



THE healthful discipline that comes from 
daily work when one takes pleasure in it 
is valuable beyond computation. The power 
to direct the mental faculties undisturbed by 
the turmoil of surroundings is of the greatest 
imaginable good, and this power acquired in 
daily discipline will be of service wherever 
one goes. The contact with our kind in gen- 
eral, high and low, superiors and inferiors, 
refined and coarse, brings to the surface the 
shining beauty of true character, as stones 
rubbed together only polish and make brighter 
the beauty of the priceless gem. Why then 
need the worker complain of his lot? Rather 
let him glory in it. Daily work is many a 
soul's salvation. Daily work may grow for 
us wings instead of forging for us fetters. 



228 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

4 6 A BATEMENT of thought" expresses 
■**• tersely a mental process which should 
be within the power of all. Rather, it expresses 
an action of the spirit upon the mind, causing 
it to refrain from working at will. No one 
who has not acquired the ability to abate the 
thought to a greater or lesser degree knows 
the highest spiritual peace which he is capable 
of attaining. It may be that the thought can 
never wholly cease while life lasts, as the 
body may not stop its breathing. But surely 
it is that when riotous thought abates, peace 
and joy roll over the kingdom. I remember 
the beautiful words of P. Ramanathan — I do 
not know whether he himself was quoting — 
that " Thoughts are the warp and woof of 
the veil which hides from us the face of God. 
Lift the veil and God is there." 



HAPPINESS 

Knew'st thou the truth, thou wouldst not pray: 
Lord to thy child send joy this day. 
Thou art deceived: joy is within, 
And never pain nor grief nor sin 
Can take't away. God put it there. 
Nor comes it nearer thee for prayer. 
Joy is of thy true self a part — 
Why shouldst thou pray for what thou art? 
— Mary Putnam Gilmore. 



The full throat of the world is charged with song, 
Morning and twilight melt with ecstasy 
In the high heat of noon. Simply to be, 

Palpitant where the green spring forces throng, 

Eager for life, life unashamed and strong — 
This is desire fulfilled. Exalted, free, 
The spirit gains her ether, scornfully 

Denies existence that is dark or wrong. 

This is enough, to see the song begun 
Which shall be finished in some field afar. 
Laugh that the night may still contain a star, 
Nor idly moan your impotence of grace. 
Life is a song, lift up your care-free face 

Gladly and gratefully toward the sun. 

— Helen Hay Whitney. 



229 



HAPPINESS 

LET us learn to dwell in the upper chambers 
of our being. There the mental atmos- 
phere is always clear, the moral horizon is 
unflecked by clouds, only enchanting distance 
and mysterious space meet the gaze of the 
Ego through the windows of the purified 
soul. 

TO be keenly sensitive to the ugly and the 
bad is to be delicately sensitive to the 
beautiful and the good. To be sufferingly 
sensitive to human inharmonies is to be joy- 
fully alive to enlightened lawfulness. So 
closely akin are joy and sorrow that while one 
hand may be pressing a heavy heart, the other 
may be stretching upward toward the stars. 

WHEN one comes into virtual possession 
of the wealth of the universe through 
conscious affinity with it, poverty in material 
things is no longer to be feared. Who can 
rob us of the soil over which we lightly tread? 
Who can deprive us of the air we freely and 
deeply breathe ? Who can bar from our vision 
the beauty of sky and star? Who can alter 
by one slightest shade the glorious coloring 
of the landscape or the gorgeousness of the 
setting sun? 

231 



232 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

WE wish for freedom to live, to act, within 
the perfect laws of God, yet independ- 
ent of the laws of man, which must be ever 
changing, never perfect. This does not mean 
lawlessness, but law/w/ness. Man's laws are 
only an approach to those of nature, an im- 
perfect copy of them. He who sees nature's 
law back of man-made law will not disobey 
the latter and it will be no bondage to him. 
His own natural law is the higher. 

ONE touch of real sorrow is worth a thou- 
sand days of that which is ordinarily 
considered happiness unalloyed. And what is 
sorrow but contact with the realities of life, 
with the seriousness of death, with the wonders 
of God's ways? Why should we then wish 
that sorrow never enter our path? Sorrow? 
It is not sorrow, — that is only our name for 
it. It is the opening of the clouds before 
us, giving us a glimpse of the vastness of 
Heaven. It is God's hand appearing out of 
the haze pointing to a glory never yet con- 
ceived in our days of simple, complacent hap- 
piness. 

IN the course of time all Nature assumes for 
us a character of intelligence, of life, and 
her laws become friendly creatures. We may 
commune with them, yield to them, trust them, 
feel ourselves shielded and protected by them. 



HAPPINESS 233 

Even the darkness of the night is friendly. 
It hushes us to repose, it soothes us to sleep. 
Why need one be restlessly wakeful when thus 
closely befriended? The space and the silence 
are full of stirring creatures, our many friends. 

ILLUMINATION from within transfigures 
all upon which it falls. Thus again may 
we make a new world about us. It is the 
nature of light to transfigure and the object 
seen takes on a special hue from the character 
of the light which shines upon it. 

FATE is my mission, my loved work, the 
particular work which I can do better 
than I can do other things, the work which I 
can do better than some one else can do it. 
Fate is a mighty friend in disguise. 

LET no one say that he cannot live a suc- 
cessful, happy life in the spot where his 
birth places him or in places where the trend 
of events takes him. The inner life, the life 
of strength, nobility, patience, effort, dignity, 
beauty, depends not upon its location in the 
material world, depends not on outer surround- 
ings, but rather by its own inherent force does 
it draw unto itself from earth and heaven the 
strong vital currents which mingling make for 
that life a new atmosphere, make for that life 
almost a new environment. So translucent in 



234 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

time may that atmosphere become that the 
soul, without moving the body from one spot, 
may have a vision far exceeding in acuteness 
and range the vision of the insatiate traveler, 
though his travels be world-wide. 

PRIDE of attainment in spiritual things is 
inconsistent with that attainment. Rather 
should we be grateful that we have been 
brought under the law. 

WHY not repose in the protecting good- 
ness of the Powers that Be? Surely it 
cannot be that the Maker of majestic orbs 
travelling nightly their course across the heav- 
ens, suggesting to us unerring law and flashing 
down upon us their starry brilliancy, will leave 
His human children uncared for and adrift. 



A 



BLOW like death knocks us out of our 
petty selves. 



THE mercurial temperament suffers more 
than the phlegmatic. It must be remem- 
bered, however, that the mercurial tempera- 
ment senses various degrees of heat and cold 
in its atmospheric environment, and when Mer- 
cury cultivates his intellect he is able to pick 
and choose the climate in which he shall daily 
dwell. 



HAPPINESS 235 

IT is a blessed thing to give of our substance 
and feel it no denial, not because we have 
much, but because we wish to give that which 
we have. 

LIFE is serious, or should be. Yet it is 
the man who is apparently the most se- 
rious who most easily bursts into the happy 
laughter of the light of heart. The deeply 
serious man looks into the principles of being, 
into the laws of life, understands the secrets 
of the Most High. He is the man then who 
may at times be lifted into the bright airiness 
of God's fairy lands. 

WE find ourselves at times in states of mind 
which seem to be those of transition. 
We do not quite understand what is taking 
place within. Things that once would have 
given us pleasure have lost their attraction. 
Occurrences which once would have caused in 
us excessive emotion no longer have that 
power. Affection itself seems to wane and 
dependence on our friends is less binding. We 
are a little fearful lest in some way past our 
comprehension and beyond our control our 
hold on life is weakening and our interest 
flagging. Yet we need not be anxious. 
Transition states such as these are glorious 
harbingers of better things to come. Irksome 
bondage of the flesh is dropping off and free- 



236 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

dom is being acquired. Let us welcome al- 
ways the advance, be watchful, trustful and 
calm. The resistless laws of nature are sweep- 
ing us on. 

DEATH saddens? It must be sweet to 
lay down the burdens of life and fall 
asleep in the arms of God, just as we lay down 
the burdens of a day and fall asleep in the 
arms of night. And as God speaks to us in 
the darkness of the night, bidding us lay down 
the burdens of the day, so he calls us by the 
cloudiness of death to lay down the burdens of 
life. Let us reverence and welcome both the 
darkness of night and the cloudiness of death, 
for God is in both. 

ONE is always happy in conscious power 
when exerted for good. Spirit unham- 
pered is strong. Therefore by as much as we 
free the spirit, give play and exercise to its 
attributes, by so much do we become con- 
sciously powerful, by so much do we grow 
like unto the gods. 

LET us cling to a friendship which shows 
itself persisting through differences of 
opinion, divergence of interests and separation 
of lives. Such a friendship proves that the 
heart is stronger than the head and that the 
heart's needs are all-important. 



HAPPINESS 237 

IF one listen, listen, with concentrated spirit- 
attention, just as he would listen with the 
physical ear were he trying to catch a sound, 
he will hear many beautiful things which pass 
unheeded by the busybody and the listless. 

RENEWED consecration to holiness of life 
and nobility of conduct will always and 
immediately lift one from the slough of 
despond. 

WHEREIN is depth different from 
height? Well may he who can look 
into the depths of the Commonplace and 
wrest from it its meaning be envied by his fel- 
low-man and not despised by him who is on 
the mountain top. Delicate courtesy compels 
us and the commonest relations in life never 
cease to be objects of beauty when we see 
them as the marvels that they are. 

THE term that we glibly use, " Face of 
Nature," is itself suggestive of life, for 
in a human face there is the expression of 
all the qualities that make up the soul. Let 
us call it then face of nature, or face of God. 
If we are akin with it, it will be very much 
alive. Then we shall see in the changing 
clouds, the waving trees, the widest waters, 
only the expression of the unseen life 



238 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

aback, responsive to each sentiment of our 
own, answering each appeal. We do not 
need the language of words when love shines 
upon us from a beaming countenance. Then 
why are we so deaf to this most eloquent mes- 
sage that comes to us from the face of Nature, 
revealing the Almighty Soul behind? 

INEXPRESSIBLE is the joy of having 
found a confidence that replaces fear, a 
trust that takes the place of doubt, a compo- 
sure wrought out of agitation, light that ban- 
ishes darkness, and a freedom that breaks 
down all prison walls. 



VARIOUS INTIMATIONS 



It is a mystery of the unknown 

That fascinates us; we are children still, 
Wayward and wistful; with one hand we cling 

To the familiar things we call our own, 
And with the other, resolute of will, 

Grope in the dark for what the day will bring. 

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 



Prais'd be the fathomless universe, 

For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge 

curious, 
And for love, sweet love — but praise ! praise ! praise ! 
For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding death. 
— Walt Whitman. 



By her own strength can Virtue live? 

Self-poised can Hope wide-winging soar? ' 
List! for our deepening age shall give 

Some answer surer than of yore ; — 
Stand fast, high hearts, thro' woe and weal ; 

Watch thro' the night, if watch ye may; 
Wait, till the rifted heavens reveal 

Unheard-of morning, mystic day. 

— F. W. H. Myers. 



239 



VARIOUS INTIMATIONS 

T3LESSED is the man for whom the mys- 
*■"* tery of life has become a continual attrac- 
tion, who sees beauty mirrored in its depths, 
and a divine significance to it all. 

ASTRONOMERS are endeavoring to dis- 
cover the nature of life on the planet 
Mars. Yet what has that life to do with us? 
If it were not that our globe itself is unfold- 
ing, giving forth its secrets to the questioning 
mind of man; if it were not that the race as a 
race is evolving, acquiring new powers with 
each passing generation, there might be some 
reason in the claim that what the Creator has 
not seen fit to reveal to us He never intended 
we should know. Yet it is not at all incon- 
ceivable that with newly evolved powers of 
the human mind, with ever higher attainment 
in spiritual living, with more finely attenuated 
human organisms, means will be found in the 
not distant future by which we may even be- 
come cognizant of the interests of our neigh- 
bors on the ruddy orb which we name Mars. 
If friends who have passed from our sight are 
living on still, they must be not only in some 
place but in a state of real vitality. Can it 
be wrong to try to reach them ? 

CONCENTRATION is the withdrawing 
of the mind from the many to the few, 
241 



242 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

from the multitudinous to the homogeneous, 
from complexity to simplicity, from manifes- 
tation to the unmanifest, from the material 
to the spiritual, from the agitated to the calm. 
If one wishes one may find sleep through con- 
centration, — sleep, the withdrawal of the Ego 
from the outer to the inner, from the seen to 
the unseen. 

WHEN I was a child I looked at the 
pale green of the western sky, tinged 
here and there with rose, and something 
within me responded to this beauty which I 
beheld at a distance. It stirrd within me an 
unutterable longing to be able to express in 
my own nature a purity such as I saw em- 
blazoned there. Surely God's handiwork 
appeals to the inner eye, the organ of the 
inmost self. 

MY real life, that which I feel surging 
through my body, welling up in my emo- 
tions and bursting out from my brain, is in- 
dependent of time and space every day. 
Death then only marks the end of certain ac- 
tions and a certain course of conduct, as the 
hour of dusk marks off the actions of the day. 

DIGNITY is more becoming than self- 
consciousness. Dignity is self-conscious- 
ness grown divine. 



VARIOUS INTIMATIONS 243 

THIS straining after arguments to prove 
that the Ego survives the death of the 
body seems needless, seems at times folly to the 
soul that is conscious that wherever it moves 
it walks among living things, that nowhere 
is there really death, but only transformation, 

I CRAVE that which satisfies my ideal of 
spiritual dignity and beauty, as one looks 
constantly in the material for beauty of form 
and color. 

THE glow that one feels from closeness 
to the Great Impersonal may be just as 
vivid as that which flows from bodily contact 
with a human friend, — nay, more so. The 
human soul can touch the Eternal, and the 
human soul when linked with the Over-Soul 
generates new and wonderful powers. 

GENTLENESS in the human countenance 
is more beautiful than assertion. The 
mild eye is more pleasing than the sharp, and 
may sparkle with a lovelier light. The saintly 
man appears to breathe out gentleness from 
every portion of his body. 

THE EGO has many kith and kin in the 
Universe whom it may take delight in 
meeting when the sheath of the personality 
is laid aside. 



244 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

LOVE and selflessness make the vision 
clear. 

IT is true that there are, here and there in 
our very midst, individuals who claim to 
be repositories of what is known as " Hermetic 
Philosophy," the knowledge of which is not 
to be found in printed books but has been 
handed down by sure means from the wisdom 
of the past. It is well known that many 
truths relating to the material universe, only 
recently established by science, were known to 
Eastern sages many years ago, secrets of the 
Cosmos wrung from it by I know not what 
sort of spiritual acumen. This occult lore is 
so vast in its scope that it comprehends as a 
matter of course life on more planes than one, 
and, among its privileged initiates, to speak 
of death as ending all seems an affront to their 
intelligence as well as to their faith. Not- 
withstanding this, the masses, the millions, 
bury in the black earth the dear bodies of 
their friends and turn away with that terrible 
sinking of the heart which means that joy has 
gone out of their lives. They are only con- 
scious that the monster Fate, to which all 
men must bow, has at last overtaken them. 
Into such hearts one who sees the light ahead 
longs to shed a ray of hope. 



VARIOUS INTIMATIONS 245 

NEITHER the mind nor the body can be 
composed if there is agitation at the cen- 
tre. And calmness is not dullness, it is not 
inactivity. It is power exerted, it is control 
of forces, it is intense mental action, it is 
spiritual energy. 



WHEN death comes to one of two who 
have been inseparable in the bonds of 
love, one is born into new life on the other 
side of the Veil, one is born into new life on 
this side. They go on together as before, 
except that the thin partition between the Seen 
and the Unseen divides their bodies but not 
their souls. Nay, the bond that bound them 
becomes the sweeter and the stronger. With 
the great event called death between them, 
both open new eyes to God's wonders at one 
and the same time. " The flesh does not con- 
join, but dissever; although through its very 
severance it suggests a shadow of the union 
which it cannot bestow." 1 

IT will give us delight to trust the goodness 
of the Universe, aye its friendliness, as if 
it were a personal being. These impersonal 
qualities may become real to us, as though em- 
bodied in human form, and our confidence in 
them increase. 

1 F. W. H. Myers, Human Personality, Vol. I, p. 112. 



246 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

NO one is great who cannot sacrifice him- 
self whenever and wherever he is actu- 
ally called upon to do so. Needless self-sac- 
rifice is a degradation to the soul. 



WE love people who are imperfect. We 
love people who are less perfect than 
ourselves. Let us do what we can by word 
or deed or silent force to bring our loved ones 
up, but let us never sink to their level if it be 
below our own, however much we love them. 



IN brief moments of unconsciousness or in 
longer hours of absorption, time for us is 
not. It appears, then, that there is no such 
thing as time, but only occurrences in con- 
sciousness. Yet when we recall a definite 
epoch from out the dimness of the past, time 
stretches out at length. Why? Because we 
ourselves have walked on apace, because much 
has transpired within. 

TO the finely developed mind of the natu- 
rally sensitive person it must be only the 
thinnest of veils that separates him from the 
denizens of another and higher world, for he 
himself draws his breath in those elements 
which apparently are the sustainers of life in 
that higher world. 



VARIOUS INTIMATIONS 247 

WHEN I was a child I conceived of the 
soul as a mass of white or pearly mist, 
oval in form, located somewhere in the trunk 
of the body. Now I sometimes picture the 
spiritual body as an expansion of something 
far more delicate than mist; not confined to the 
trunk of the body but permeating and radiating 
from it; not white or pearly but aglow with 
delicate and various colors, approaching to 
whiteness in proportion as the Ego is pure; 
with centres of thought or light scattered 
through it like nuclei; keeping in general the 
bodily form yet shooting from these nuclei its 
search-light rays, which pierce more deeply 
into the abyss of the Unknown according as 
the soul is great. 



THERE is a dignity of spiritual conscious- 
ness and a dignified way of living which 
is not obliged to be constantly asking itself 
how it shall dress, how it shall act, how it shall 
talk. All these minor things fall into har- 
monious relation with the superior creature 
within who has accomplished this feat of 
dignified living. Great dignity of character 
makes one ashamed to ask how its possessor is 
garbed, in fact almost blinds altogether to the 
fact that he is garbed at all. Yet if we take 
note of particulars it will be apparent that the 
garment is becoming and fitting. Some subtle 



248 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

essence emanates from the cultured soul, blend- 
ing the outer apparel into the harmony of the 
whole. 

THERE are more things in the possibili- 
ties of the seeker than are dreamt of in 
the philosophy of the dogmatist. 

IT may do injury to those who have passed 
away to wish them to keep in touch with the 
sorrows of this life, but it cannot injure them 
to keep in touch with its loves. Selfish grief 
on our part may hold them back in their 
career, but true love in this world or any other 
can do naught but bless. Love loves the 
lovely, and love itself, long-suffering though 
it be, may at last grow cold if the object that 
once attracted it be constantly bathed in grief. 
I think we may judge of them as we judge of 
ourselves, when we ask the question, is it 
wrong to expect them to keep in touch with our 
lives. 

ONE who learns the art of living easily 
here is becoming fitted to enter naturally 
into life beyond. It is only spiritual living 
that is easy. What conception can the mole 
have of the glory of the sunlit heavens? Yet 
the robin perches on the swaying bough, the 
lark soars upward toward the blue, and the 



VARIOUS INTIMATIONS 249 

eagle ranges the mountain top. tWhen we 
look into the earth, blackness bars our vision. 
When we look into the heavens there is no 
limit to the glory, save the weakness in the 
physical eye. 

THE more devotedly one loves a single 
person the more is his heart open to 
lesser degrees of friendly relation. 

IT would seem that each grade of matter 
were permeable by a finer which is its life, 
and that when the finer is withdrawn from the 
coarser the latter dies. In relation to our 
coarser bodies the air is spirit, is the breath of 
life. It is not at all difficult to conceive, 
analogously, of those we call dead inhabiting 
a finer than fleshly form, which must in the 
nature of things be invisible to our outward 
sense, even as is pure air. 

THE simple, devoted soul has faith; the 
intelligent, knowing soul has a greater. 
Trust may be the accompaniment of igno- 
rance; a greater trust is the accompaniment of 
wisdom. 

THE newly bereaved stands mourner be- 
side the open grave. The deathly still- 
ness that prevails but faintly symbolizes the 
deadly inaction of his heart. Man tries in 



250 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

myriad ways to keep before his eyes in endur- 
ing bronze and marble a reminder of death. 
Yet above all these silent testimonials waves 
the green of the foliage and shines the blue of 
the ether, both palpitating with life. Let the 
mourner but look upward, and with steady 
gaze the heart gradually succumbs to nature's 
persuasion, and the bronze and the marble 
lose their terror. 



GOD speaks to us in flower and star and 
sky, in love and tenderness and suffering. 
The word " language " means that which can 
be uttered by the tongue, but many thousand 
things are communicated to us by other means. 
Let us call it speaking, for lack of a more ac- 
curate term. Can you hear the speech which 
God utters every hour in every place? A 
speech more eloquent than language, as the 
speech of the eye is more eloquent than the 
uttered word. God speaks through the per- 
fection of human beauty in another, through 
grace, through composure of soul. These are 
about us every day. Let us listen for the 
music of their voice. 



A FTER disillusionment life becomes increas- 
<**' ingly wonderful, interesting and inviting. 
Not the outer world of sense, but the inner 



VARIOUS INTIMATIONS 251 

meanings of things; the tremendous signifi- 
cance of it all and its fathomless depths. 
These are the things that now attract. 

IF a deep love for one person possess our 
heart, it should, while losing none of its 
individual strength, be gradually sublimated 
into the impersonal quality, like unto that 
which exists in the bosom of the Infinite. 

IT has ever been one of the mysteries of life 
that we must give up in order to own, that 
we must sacrifice in order to possess, that we 
must die daily to ourselves in order to realize 
the larger self. A kind deed by the wayside, 
then, has a far deeper significance than the 
mere earning of a little happiness as we pass. 
It is a part of the complicated network of 
relationship that binds all human beings to- 
gether and bears us all onward toward the 
possession of better life. It is, in the language 
of a Myers, " that universal scheme by which 
the higher helps the lower, and the stronger 
the weaker, through all the ideal relationships 
of the world of life." 

WE say that the spirit is a spark from God, 
but from birth onward it must be con- 
stantly fanned into greater glow until its 
scintillation becomes a light divine. 



252 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

WITH a person who is conscious of uni- 
versal life, to whom the distant star and 
the whole starry host seem friendly, it is 
wholly contrary to what has become his 
normal thought to relegate to the category of 
the dead an intelligent loved or an intense 
lover. The harmony of the plane on which 
such a person habitually dwells would be 
destroyed by non-belief. 

THE mystic seeks God in every department 
of life. To be a mystic is not necessarily 
to be a recluse. 

LET it be remembered that there are per- 
sons who are finer built, more delicately 
sensitive, more spiritually sublimated than are 
we ourselves. And it behooves us to listen 
with respect when they tell us of existence in 
higher conditions and on planes of finer matter 
than we ourselves know. 

THE spiritual life, what is it, either here or 
there? The person who strives daily to 
live as much of that life as is possible to him, 
the best that is revealed to his understanding, 
comes in time to realize strength, vitality, 
goodness, joyousness, all things satisfying in 
themselves, to such degree that his questions 
are all answered in himself. This new strong 
unfoldment within himself, this thing that he 



VARIOUS INTIMATIONS 253 

perceives grows larger daily, is life itself, and 
to call life death is an absurdity. 

LET us invent a new term for the taking 
leave of the body by the spirit. Let it 
be one to which no faint touch of sadness 
clings. The mystery and the loveliness in 
death overshadow its sadness. 

UNTIL we know what death is, we do not 
know what life is ; until we know what loss 
is, we do not know what love is. 



LOVE 



Comfort our souls with love, — 

Love of all human kind; 

Love special, close — in which, like sheltered dove, 

Each weary heart its own safe nest may find; 

And love that turns above 

Adoringly, contented to resign 

All loves, if need be, for the Love Divine. 

— Dinah Mulock Craik. 



*55 



LOVE 

LOVE is too lofty a theme to be broached 
by any but the wisest minds, to be handled 
by any but reverent hands. From the view- 
point of this chapter I may but look at it from 
afar, may but kiss the hem of its garment; 
yet with that touch and that look know that 
its effulgence is spread over me, that its virtue 
passes through me. 

LOVE unlocks closed portals, builds a beau- 
tiful archway through the densest of 
woods. 

LOVE is a pain, an aching, yet sings when 
all else is sad. 

THE death of the loved one brings life to 
the lover. 

LOVE looks out through open windows, lays 
a hand on the departing soul. 

LOVE blinds because it dazzles. 

OVE envelops one in a beautiful soft mist 
*~* which sheds its whiteness on all around. 
It must then be of the nature of ethereal 
light. 

[" OVE pierces the farthest vistas, knows 
-*— 4 that sometime, somewhere, it may claim 
its own. 

257 



258 BOTH SIDES OF THE VEIL 

LOVE purified, intensified, floods the heart 
with light and wisdom. 

LOVE loses its loveliness in too many words. 



A 



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